Beyond Luck
by Wiped out
Summary: Have you ever been sitting down and cheating at a good old game of cards when suddenly you find yourself being dragged into a nice comical adventure with lots of explosion which you can only pray to live throguh? Well whether or not you have, Jimmy did.
1. Chapter 1, Always cheat at cards

Chapter 1

Stratford neutral base, free space. This station had been through all sorts of times. At the time it was built, it was the farthest station from earth ever made. At that time there was no Coalition, no Noblists, no Union, no galactic wars, no pirates, and no mercenaries. Man hadn't even set foot, so to speak, out of the Milky Way at the time, yet for it's time, Stratford was an incredible achievement. No military or government agency owned the base. It was public base that anyone could visit. People of all sorts were allowed to go there for what ever reason; to do some business, research, military, pleasure, sight seeing or even to find a home. It was a place for everyone. It was a place of new beginnings and marked the beginning of mankind's greatest achievements.

From Stratford, the first deep space probe was launched into the Andromeda galaxy. Years later, the first fleet of colonists was launched from Stratford to explore the place. Over the years Stratford would have many more historic achievements. The first small ship-mounted warp drive was developed, tested and launched at Stratford. That invention marked the beginning of mankind's great exploration and journey through space.

However, lately, the station no longer had the grand magnificence it used to. It was a couple centuries old and, although it had been rebuilt, it was once again getting old. On top of this, the station had lately fallen into ill ownership. War and politics had also left the station in a bad situation. The Union had been pushed back out of the Stratford's sector because it did not have the resources to hold it. The sector also contained little tactical or economic advantage and so it was now situated out in free space, where "rules" was a five letter word that meant there aren't any. The Noblists had recently started to expand slowly toward their position, and the stations owners and residence all hoped that the Noblists would eventually regain control. Until then, they were easy prey for space pirates, and, even for mercenaries, but the later was unlikely.

Patrick Deckard, a veteran Strike mercenary, walked down the hallways of the old station. Although the station had fallen under ill ownership, that didn't mean they didn't care about its appearance. The station was as magnificent as ever. The halls were a light bluish silver with a soft glowing rim of a darker blue at arm level that acted as a banister rail. At the moment, Patrick was heading to a tavern to meet an employee. The old Strike mercenary had walked down these halls many times before in his life. Stratford station was the closest thing he had to a home. It was the place that he kept all his belongings until he sold them, as he did not hold on to much. He had a permanent room in the tavern he was heading to, but the only things he kept in there were a bed and blankets. The only things he really possessed were his ship, his weapons and one or two personal belongings (he also had clothes, needless to say, that were stored in his ship). That was the way he liked it, free from anything and everything. He did, however, have an extra ship lying around the station but he could never bring himself to sell it. In fact, it wasn't exactly his to sell.

Patrick was taller then the average man, and at the age of thirty-seven, he looked a bit older. One would most likely guess that he was around forty years old. He was well muscled and although he didn't exactly look it, he could bench 200 pounds with no sweat. He wore a standard Strike mercenary uniform, mainly blue with yellow highlights and two large red streaks down each leg, one streak on the left and another on the right. He also wore a leather sash and belt, from which extra weapons and ammo were carried at need. Patrick had about a dozen knives and daggers strapped to his sash along with magazine packs. He also had a pair of katana blades strapped to his belt, one on the left and another on the right. He had a dagger strapped to each leg, a pistol on his belt and another pistol strapped to his belt. He also had a dagger in each boot. He had dark green eyes, short brown hair and his face was unshaven, saying he had a five o'clock shadow would be an understatement. His face was starting to show wrinkles from age and worry. It was rough and rigid, with the scars of many battles all over it.

He hadn't had a truly good night's sleep in the past four years. In fact, for the past four years, he hadn't had a truly good life. He had simply been living, not really caring what happened. There had been almost no good times at all. He was slowly running out of real friends, and he had drifted away from almost everyone who had ever cared about him. They kept on trying to grab a hold of him, but every time they did, he would slip further away. To them, it seemed like their good friend was slowly drowning in a pool of grief and despair, going deeper and deeper until, one fateful day, he would finally hit the bottom, from which there would be no return.

He now lived to fight and breathe, until the day he had fought to the point that he could no longer breathe, and, with his fighting skills, that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. He was a veteran. He could out-shoot any marksman in the entire clan (Well… he couldn't out-shoot Striker…). He was also the best swordsman in the clan. He could whip out a dagger and put it through it a target fifty feet away in one short second. On top of that, he was one of the best fighter pilots known to man. Many could argue that this was because he had one of the best ships that existed, but none dared say it to his face. The fear of finding several daggers sticking out of their bodies in several places the second they told him, made most people bit their tongues. Patrick had developed all these skills over years of rigorous training and experience; he had lived a life with more danger then ten military men combined.

Yet last night, Patrick had slept quite comfortably. In fact it was the best sleep he had had in the past four years. He was feeling quite good today. In fact, it was the closest he had been to happiness in the past four years. For some reason, today felt like a new day, a new day of a new point in his life. Perhaps he would finally get rid of that extra ship...

Patrick turned a corner, walked into the tavern and looked around. The tavern was filled with many people, from Coalition and Union soldiers to Dragon space pirates and Strike mercenaries. A soft blue light in the middle and a soft fire-like illumination all over the rest lit the tavern up. Since it was daytime, so to speak, it was relatively well lit, so one could see quite well. Patrick had walked into this tavern the exact same way for countless years. Stares from almost every table encountered him, but the elite Strike mercenary was all to use to it. Veterans stared upon him out of jealousy; for he was top rank in the clan and was better trained then any of them could ever hope to be. Rookies stared at him in awe and envy, hoping that, one day; they would be just as good as him. Patrick met all the stares with stone cold coolness, being all too used to it.

He noticed a rooky Strike mercenary gambling with some dragon pirates in a game of cards at one table. By the looks of things, the young Strike mercenary was winning and both pirates seemed to be becoming a little irritated at their opponent's good fortune. Like Patrick, the young Strike was also enjoying a good day.

The elite mercenary veteran calmly walked over to a table where a Noblist officer was sitting down with his cap pulled over his face, as to not be seen or recognized. Patrick could easily tell that he loathed being in the neutral base were pirates and mercenaries were everywhere, but he had no choice. Patrick glanced at the officer's outfit, and, could tell by the markings that he was of high rank and was situated on the bridge of a capital ship. What position he had there, he could not tell. The man had short black hair, white skin and was clean shaven except for a thick mustache under his nose which he stroked occasionally with his left hand as he leaned on the table with his right. He was slightly shorter then the average man but, judging from the expression on his face, not too many people annoyed him about that.

Patrick moved up to the officer's table and sat down on his opposite side. "Hello there," said Patrick casually, as he put his feet on the table and leaned back on his chair. He WAS in very good humor today.

"Greetings, merc," replied the officer, spitting the word merc, "I am lieutenant, Samuel O'Bryan. I have come here on the behalf of General Christof Yeager."

"Yes, yes, yes. Enough with the formalities officer," replied Patrick waving his hand in the air. He began to call the bartender for a beer but Samuel quickly waved his hand and shook his head. Patrick motioned for one beer and the bartender nodded. Since Patrick always ordered the same drink, so the bartender didn't even bother to ask what kind of drink he wanted.

"So, what do the mighty Noblists need today?" asked Patrick with a smirk.

"Do not mock my nation mercenary scum! If it was my decision, your kind would never set foot in our territory!" snapped back the officer, slightly trembling in rage.

"But it isn't, so what hellhole are you sending me into this time," replied Patrick cutting the officer off before he made a scene.

"Yes… well, let's get this done and over with. We need you to scout ahead of our fleet and spy on a Dragons outpost we plan to attack," replied the officer, regaining his composure.

"Woo, woo, and woo. Wait… Did I just hear that the Noblists are actually going to fight back?" asked Patrick with a mocking grin.

Samuel glared at Patrick intensely and almost jumped out of his seat and attacked the mercenary. He was barely able to hold himself from doing so and he trembled in rage furiously. He clenched his fist, gritted his teeth and took a couple deep breaths before replying.

"Well, they have captured five-thousand civilians and they need to be dealt with swiftly," relied Samuel trying to keep his voice regal and professional.

"Is that so… Well I'd be happy to…" started Patrick.

"Wait, there's more," replied Samuel, cutting Patrick off.

"Then tell me," replied Patrick impatiently.

"We need you to deliver a couple of satchel charges to the pirate base before we engage the enemy, and, once this is done, The Crimson Squad will move in and assist you with the retrieval of the civilians," stated the officer, with a worried look on his face at the mention of the civilians.

"Don't worry; they're in good hands," replied Patrick coolly, seeing the officer's worried expression, "Now this sounds like it's going to cost you quite a bit… I'll be needing about… oh… roughly thirty-thousand credits."

"Thirty-thousand credits is a lot of cash," replied the officer sternly.

"And what did Christof tell you to pay me?" Patrick asked casually.

The officer bit his lip and frowned. Christof and Patrick hade been truly great friends four years ago and Christof was still trying to save Patrick from drowning in his inner grief. The general also knew that this would be the price of the job, but they were getting the best so…

"Oh and merc," called out Samuel, as he prepared to leave, "there's one more thing."

"What… You want me to kill the pirate leader in his sleep now too?" replied Patrick with a mocking tone. Patrick was, without doubt, in good humor today.

"You are to have a partner."

"I work alone, Christof knows that and I'm sure you do too," stated Patrick coldly. His good mood had suddenly disappeared.

"Well General Yeager has deemed it necessary that you have a partner and as you said earlier, it's not my choice," replied the officer, with a slight grin as he got up. He enjoyed seeing the mercenary's discomfort, "both you and your partner, which ever of your low life soldiers you chose, will be paid thirty-thousand credits each. You'll find the rest of your instructions in your account files. See you in a week, merc, and do be ready to fight some pirates."

"What do you think these are for?" asked Patrick in a sour sarcastic mood, motioning to the dozens of blades that were hanging from his sash and belt. And, with that, the officer left the tavern.

Patrick clenched his right hand and slammed it into the table. A partner. He hadn't had a partner in 4 years. That was when Meghan had been killed… He quickly buried the subject from his thoughts. It was still painful to think of that mission. He hadn't been able to get to sleep for a month afterward. He did everything in his power to protect her but he still had failed. There was nothing he could have done, but blame has a way of sticking with you for years.

Suddenly there was a crash on the other side of the tavern. The bartender quickly ran over to Patrick's table, put down his glass of beer and rushed back into the kitchen; he didn't like violence too much. Patrick looked over to where the commotion was coming from with interest. It seemed that the young Strike mercenary that was gambling with the space pirates had gotten himself into a bit of trouble. The two pirates stood up, glaring menacingly at the lone mercenary. One of the pirates was short in stature, chubby and didn't seem all too powerful, yet he had a scheming look on his face, obviously the "brains" of the outfit. The other was a massive behemoth hulk who looked like he could toss a table across the room, which _would_ explain why the table that was no longer between the gamblers. The hulk didn't seem too smart though. Judging by the look on his face, he was the muscle.

On their opposite side was the young Strike mercenary. He was slightly taller then the average man; he did not look strong at all; he could probably bench a maximum of 110 pounds, and no more then that. He was about 19 years old. He had thick dark hair that had a red tinge to it. He had brown skin and light brown eyes. He was leaning backwards, as if trying to run away. He bore an awkward smile and his left hand was twitching, slowly reaching for his c-class port. He took one quick glance behind him and saw that the table they had been playing on was now on the floor almost directly behind him. He had gotten up and dodged the table just as the pirates had begun to get up and throw it.

"Give us back our money, merc," ordered the big brutish one, spitting on the ground.

"How about…. No," replied the kid with a Canadian accent, bearing a very worried look on his face as he inched backwards.

Upon hearing the kid's voice, Patrick recognized him, although he couldn't place his name yet. He had taught the kid only three months ago, in the mercenary training academy. It was insisted by Striker, the leader of the Strike mercenary clan and an old friend of Patrick, that he teach one or two classes every year at the academy. Patrick didn't quite like teaching and he knew it was just another attempt to stop him from falling into the abyss of his mind, yet, he was paid quite handsomely for it, so every once and a while, Patrick would haul himself over to the academy and torture the students horribly for a week or so. No one ever forgot his classes. As Patrick remembered, the kid was pretty clumsy and stupid, but luck seemed to follow him and he did have brief moments of genius. He was horrible in class and it seemed that "class time" was a synonym for "nap time" to the kid, but, Patrick had seen him in actual combat and he was able to hold his own in a real fight. The Academy's graduation was only last week, so the rooky must have just gotten out and joined the Strikes. That was good, the Strikes could use good people like him.

"You'll give us back that money if you know what's good for you, kid," warned the muscle bound pirate.

"Hey! I won this cash fair and square," replied the rooky, slightly grinning.

"No you didn't! You cheated like a Union politician!" cried the smaller one, completely enraged.

"Well then, I'll just run like a space pirate then," replied the rooky, his grin becoming bigger as he saw the pirates reaction to the insult

The big brute face contorted in rage and he instantly whipped out his Enforcer pistol and opened fire on the rooky. The dumb pirate thought that he would quickly kill the young Strike mercenary, but, by the time he had drawn his gun, the kid had fallen back against the fallen table and had pulled out his rifle. The brute's shots barely missed the kid's head, but, before he could react to his opponent's change in position, he was short one arm. The rooky had drawn his K-59 rifle set on full automatic, and had nailed the brute right in his right shoulder joints, thus rendering his right arm useless. The kid quickly got up, jumped over the table and unloaded his empty magazine.

The brute grabbed onto his shoulder in an effort to stop the bleeding and knocked down another table for him and his partner to hide behind. A thing that anyone should know is that every tavern had bulletproof tables that can withstand most small firearms fire. It was cheaper to make the tables indestructible then to replace them every week. Patrick stayed still, hardly reacting to the commotion. He took a good, large, gulp of his beer and looked over to the kid who was now fumbling with his K-59's magazine, this was getting interesting.

The K-59 was a very popular weapon during the galactic war that had ended about fifty years ago and it had a very good service record. It came into service around mid-way through the brutal century long war between the Coalition and the Union. The war had made a big boom in the weapon industry and the K-59 was one of the best weapons made by man at the time. It was cheap, effective and quite powerful. It was sold to both Coalition and Union forces and became the standard weapon for all troops. Unfortunately the company that constructed them was completely destroyed by the Dagon space pirates and most K-59s were lost during the war. The war still wasn't quite over, both sides had just ran out of troops and resources to support a full scale war so there was a little cease-fire, but tension was still high and had lately escalated. The sub was recoil operated, equipped with a scope attachment and it was simple to use. Patrick was slowly getting more and more interested, one did not see a K-59 too often any more, although it was still a weapon to be reckoned with to this day.

The rooky slammed his magazine into the rifle and got into a comfortable position. He glanced around the room and looked right at Patrick, recognizing him from the academy. The rooky took in a deep breath prepared to jump up and open-fire. The pirates had opened fire on him and had him pinned down behind the table. Patrick showed the kid three fingers. The kid showed Patrick two. Patrick showed him one. With that, the young mercenary jumped up from behind the table, and was just about to open fire on the pirates when.

Click!

Another pirate stood right behind the young Strike mercenary with a Vervat Griffon pistol pressed against the back of his skull.

"Youse ain't goin' no where, merc," announced the pirate, not sounding very intelligent at all.

"Shit," muttered the rookie as he dropped his weapon.

Thwack!

The rookie turned around and discovered that a throwing knife was embedded in the pirate's upper arm. The pirates arm went limp and he dropped his pistol before getting a chance to shoot it. The room went silent and everyone could hear the pistol fall to the floor. The stunned pirate clutched his arm and starred at Patrick in disbelief. He started to tremble slightly and took a step back. Patrick simply stood with a smug grin on his face, hand on one of his many sword hafts.

"This might be a bad time to tell you this, but I don't like pirates roughing up one of my boys. If you don't mind letting him go we'll be leaving now," announced Patrick as he stepped forward.

"Not so fast, mercenary scum…" another pirate said angrily, pulling out a condor sub gun.

"It seems to me that you don't know who you're dealing with, so allow me to refresh your memory. I am Patrick, 2nd in command of clan Strike, and if I draw these swords, you'll wish I had used a gun," replied Patrick as he drew two of his katanas from their sheaths and adopted a fighting stance.

Three other pirates, now all standing in a group, aimed their guns at Patrick menacingly. The thunderclap of rounds being fired was shocking to the rooky mercenary but Patrick was all to used to it (in fact, Patrick was used to many, many things). Patrick quickly ducked, grabbed a chair and whipped it at the pirates. Now, although a chair isn't very harmful, it still smacks into you and is an all-around pain so one must duck and stop shooting, or, keep shooting and receive a chair to the face, which would put a halt to your shooting. While the pirates debated on what to do about this, Patrick ducked low and ran forwards a couple of yards, putting himself right in front of the pirates. He smacked the first pirate across the face with his left handed katana and smashed the pommel of the other katana into the pirate's face, which did a good job of knocking him out. Patrick then cut another pirate to his left magazine out of its gun of with his left katana. He then thrust his right katana into the third pirates shoulder, making him drop his pistol in pain.

The first pirate remained lying down unconscious with a black eye and broken nose. The second and the third looked at each other for a second and quickly decided that they should turn around and run for it.

"You okay, kid?" asked Patrick, sheathing his two katanas as the pirates quickly left the tavern; they had other things to be doing, like…. not getting killed…

"Yeah, thanks for the assists, I thought I was a dead man," replied the kid, completely amazed by the scene he had just witnessed, "So you're Patrick, eh? Long time no see."

"Why yes, I believe we met at the Academy," replied Patrick, already liking the kid for recognizing him.

"Yeah we did," replied the rooky, remembering the experience with the old veteran quite clearly, "name's Jimmy."

"Well then, Jimmy, how would you feel about making a little scratch, say thirty-thousand credits?"

Jimmy's mouth gawked open upon hearing the amount of cash he could make as a scratch. His parent's had made that much in two months, together, and here he was being offered that much cash for one job. Normally rookies made 100 to 500 credits a job. The life of a mercenary was a hard one and didn't pay that well for a long time but people stayed in it for the thrills. Although laborious, the life of a mercenary was action packed and exciting, although it cut ones life expectancy down by about two thirds.

"That would be great, but I don't have a ship yet." replied Jimmy, losing his wide eyed expression and guessing that such a job would require a ship. Something he didn't have.

Jimmy had arrived at Stratford station via a transport ship. He was going to make a living out here in free space were mercenaries often made a living. Yet mercenaries had a tendency of never staying around the same place for too long, their work tended to bring them all over the galaxies.

"Don't worry, I'll handle that. Come to the hangar bay in an hour and try not to get into too much trouble in the mean time," replied Patrick quickly brushing aside any of Jimmy's doubts.

It looks like I just solved my partner problem, thought Patrick as he left the tavern. Maybe it is time to get rid of that old extra ship…


	2. Chapter 2, The calm before the storm

Chapter 2

Jimmy walked into the Stratford station's hangar bay. Men of all sorts ran (or walked) by everywhere. Stratford station housed everyone from Coalition forces, to Union Soldiers, Strike mercenaries, to Dragon space pirates. The outpost had its own security teams posted all around the station, to insure that no major fights broke out among the occupants and visitors. Fighting was tolerated none the less and it wasn't rare (on the contrary it was quite common) to see a small group of Union and Coalition soldiers go at it, but, as soon as it got out of control, a security team would break up the fight, and, since security was normally bigger, more skillful, and better equipped (those illegal weapons helped out a lot in this department) fights were normally quelled pretty fast.

Jimmy walked down the hangar cautiously. He wasn't afraid of the Union, or Coalition forces, but the Dragons didn't exactly like the Strike mercenaries. In fact the two clans had gone to war with one another quite a few times and these wars could last up to fifty years. But, like the Coalition and Union, there was, for now, a brief period of peace. Well, maybe not peace, but at least not a full-scale war.

Jimmy passed a group of pirates that stared at him viciously and his hand dropped for his gun. He recognized some of the men the group from those he had fought in the bar (well, Patrick had done most of the fighting). The big brute he had shot in the shoulder had syrifium (medical tape used to bandage injuries that increased healing rate and can repair broken bones, and, even occasional severed joints) wrapped around his shoulder. The group of pirates started heading up in Jimmy's direction but Jimmy kept on walking.

The group of pirates fell in line behind Jimmy, slowly gaining on him. Everyone in the hangar could clearly see the Dragon pirates, clad in their black uniforms, walking down the hangar bay behind the lone Strike mercenary in his blue and red outfit. The pirates were making quite a racket walking down the hangar bay. They pounded their feet against the ground as they walked down the hangar bay, making sure that everyone, including their prey, Jimmy, could clearly see and hear them; pirates like making a big show of things. What most didn't see was that every Strike mercenary was taking up a position near the bandits, so that if anything did start, they would be able to mow the bastards down in mere seconds.

Sweat beaded down Jimmy's forehead as he walked down the hangar bay. His left hand began to twitch towards his c-class port and he started to scratch the back of his head with his right. How the hell was he suppose to get out of this one. He took a quick glance behind himself to see how many pirates were after him. There were about fifteen or so, all ugly, all menacing and all armed to the tooth. He took a glance about the entire hangar and also noticed his fellow Strike mercenaries walking near the gang of pirates or bunked down in some place, already taking careful aim at the pirates. Many of them gave Jimmy a nod, a wink or some other sign that they were with him. Alright, so I have enough help to take them out, thought Jimmy, but how in the blue hell do I get out of this thing alive.

Jimmy glanced around the room and noticed a dozen crates, or so, lying near a large cargo ship. The crates seemed to be bulletproof and most likely contained explosives. I can jump behind those things just as I walk by them, thought Jimmy franticly, from there, his fellow mercenaries would mow down the pirate bastards in one short quick action. Many of his fellow mercenaries had already taken a guess at Jimmy's plan and had taken up position so that they could mow down the pirates fast and decisively.

Suddenly, the noise of the pirates hulking down the hangar bay stopped. Jimmy fearfully turned around, expecting to see them all aiming guns at him. He slowly turned around, his left hand nervously twitching for his c-class port. When Jimmy came about though he was quite amazed at the scene he saw. A man was standing between him and the pirates in light combat armor, holding a katana, and pointing it menacingly at the pirates. The other Strike mercenaries started to become relaxed and many lowered their guns.

"If you stupid sons of bitches don't want another lesson in sword play, I suggest you get the hell out of my sight," yelled out the armored man, who Jimmy now recognized as Patrick.

One of the pirates stepped forward and raised a pistol towards Patrick. A load bang echoed throughout the hangar bay. The pirate then tossed away his gun and looked up onto the second level were a Strike mercenary sat smugly aiming her sniper rifle at the pirate's head, smoke coming out of her barrel. The pirate's then released just how many Strike mercenaries were around them, ready to open fire at a seconds notice. The pirates grumbled and mumbled but then someone seemed to take control of the situation and all the pirates seemed to agree with him and left.

Jimmy noticed that, just like last time in the tavern, Patrick stood out from the crowd. It was probably the flight suit, thought Jimmy off-handily. From the look of the armor, Jimmy guessed that it was zero-gravity combat armor. Yet just like Patrick's normal uniform, there was a dozens of blades strapped to the sash and his two katana blades strapped to his belt. It also had an anti-grave manipulator on the back, and, multiple C-class ports. Suddenly, Jimmy realized exactly what the armor was for, it was boarding action armor.

"Common, kid," ordered Patrick grudgingly as he motioned for Jimmy to follow him. Patrick was beginning to get sick of the goddamn pirates.

Jimmy fell in line behind Patrick and glanced back and saw the group of Strike mercenaries dispersing. Some even came over and patted him on the back, recognizing he was a Rooky (uniforms showed rank and status in the clan) and gave him a couple words of advice. Other mercs and pirated that were not part of either clan (there were many clans) kept on walking some laughing that a Rooky could cause such a commotion, others wishing that a fight would have broke out.

Starships flew in and out of the hangar, and the doors were always open. Each ship had markings on it, showing which nation, clan, or company, it was part of. Some were "independents" and bore their owners own markings, with the independent sign. In fact, most ships were marked with some sort of symbol, each meaning something or other, to show who their owner was.

Jimmy and Patrick finally stopped walking. They were now near the doors of the hangar, and Jimmy could see right out into space. Ships flew by left, right, and center, and, he could see planets off in the distance. He scanned the stars; to tell which direction he was looking from. Off in the distance he could see a tiny blue dot, Earth, his home. Earth was, and always has been, in control of the Union but Jimmy was one of those few who didn't stay on the rich home world of all humans, and, had gone to the Academy for a life of fun and adventure. Most 19-year-old boys on Earth would either be in some research department (joy), the army (at least it was kind of interesting), or politics (heaven forbid).

Jimmy quickly washed away his drifting thoughts, and looked around. Supposedly, Patrick had a ship for him, but he couldn't see Strike ship anywhere nearby. Maybe it was in repairs, or in the holdings. Some ships were given private holdings instead of being left out in the open, although these were normally very expensive.

"You know how to fly?" asked Patrick, as he walked over to a control panel on the wall.

"Yeah… I got top rank in my class," replied Jimmy.

"Perfect. Now, the ship I'm about to give you is a one of a kind. You'll never have seen one like it and won't see another one anywhere. Most likely, you won't see another in your entire life." Said Patrick matter-of-factly is he led Jimmy into the holding.

"Really, why so?" asked Jimmy, kind of bewildered at what was so secret. It was just a ship, right?

"Can't tell you, that's none of your business, for now, just concern yourself with not wrecking her," answered Patrick in his impenetrable way.

Jimmy looked around, but still didn't see any ship. He was about to ask where the hell the ship was when a door leading into a private part of the private hangar started opening up. They opened depressingly slowly, and it seemed like it was going to take a few minutes.

"What's with the armor?" Jimmy asked "Just curious."

"Believe me; we're going to need it. I've got a suit for you in the ship." Patrick answered absently, while tightening the strap on the katana on his left hip.

The doors suddenly opened the rest of the way, (All that waiting must have been the locking mechanism undoing) and Jimmy looked inside. There, stood a ship that, Patrick was right, he had never seen before. The chassis looked like an alpha class fighter's (standard to the Strikes), but the ship had way too many weapons to actually be an alpha.

"Jesus Christ! This thing has at least 20 Valkyries on it and, no… Are those Dark Lances?" Jimmy was ecstatic. This ship was amazing! It was noticeably larger than an alpha fighter, but still too small to be a Beta bomber. "What class is this?"

"An omega," Patrick said without thinking. "Damn." he cursed under his breath, when he realized he had just given it away.

Omega… wasn't that the code name for the experimental Union fighters, supposedly capable of taking out at least ten medium fighters all on its own, thought Jimmy to himself. All the while, he had walked in front of the ship and nodded in approval of the cluster pods.

"Can I take a look in the cockpit?" Jimmy asked, while looking for a ladder.

"Kid incase you haven't noticed, there is almost no a-g above the floor, just jump," Said Patrick, matter-of-factly once again, while grabbing a pair of rifles from a weapons rack, 12 feet off the ground.

"Oh," replied Jimmy, "Oops." He jumped up and propelled his body towards the cockpit of the amazing fighter.

The display became active as he entered the cockpit. The words "X-105 AI welcomes new user," and, a female image appeared on the screen.

"Patrick, you've finally brought me a new pilot. Nice to meet you! I'm the X-105's AI you can call me Katie. What should I call you?" asked the ships A.I., in a really realistic female voice.

"Uhhh… Jimmy... I guess…" he said feeling a little awkward. Damn, this AI person is hot, he thought to himself. He was right. The A.I. appeared as a 20 year old half Asian, half white, girl with short brown hair.

"Thank you, I am quite attractive. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I have a neural interface so I can basically read your thoughts. It's supposed to help me react if you mess up by mistake, but it's handy for other things too…" responded the A.I. quickly.

Jimmy felt a little embarrassed, and his face flushed red. Patrick couldn't help but shake his head and laugh under his breath at Jimmy. Ah crap, I just made a fool of myself, thought Jimmy.

"Why yes, you did," stated the A.I. out loud.

"What the… Hey… get out of my head!" Jimmy yelled, at the computer.

The A.I.'s image began to cry, and sobbed, "Patrick, I don't like this pilot… I want another one… like Meghan…"

Patrick suddenly slammed his fist into the wall; with such force it left a noticeable dent in the wall.

"What did I tell you, she's dead, never say her name again!" Patrick yelled at the computer. I couldn't save her… I let her die… What a fool I was, falling in love… he thought to himself.

"Being in love isn't being foolish, it's only natural…" replied Katie, attempting to make up for its mistake, mentioning something it knew Patrick never wanted to talk about it again.

"Shut up and acquaint him with your systems!" yelled Patrick. As he walked past Jimmy he muttered "I see what you mean kid…" and started to walk off, muttering about stupid A.I.s poking around peoples minds

"Who's Meghan?" Jimmy yelled after him, feeling completely lost as to what was going on.

"Shut up and pay attention to the god damn A.I. It'll tell you everything you need to know about the ship," Patrick replied grumpily as he walked away from the ship.

Jimmy watched as the AI showed how to operate the multiple weapons systems and engines, but his eyes kept straying to Patrick, and what he was doing. Patrick had an old earth pistol out and was clutching it to himself. Jimmy noticed a tear come up in his eye.

"Hey! Are you even listening to me, Jimmy" Katie reprimanded.

"Huh? What? Yeah, I'm listening." Jimmy replied in a daze.

"No you're not. Neural interface remember," replied the A.I., as though stating that it was time for lunch.

Katie went over the weapons a second time.

"You're amazing, but how do you power the dark lances and the other systems simultaneously?" asked Jimmy, who was actually almost paying attention now.

"That's easy to do, but classified," answered Katie, giving Jimmy a short wink.

Suddenly, Jimmy heard a voice inside his head. "You know, this neural interface works both ways. If you ever want to say something without SOMEONE hearing, just think it. I'll know. So, anything you want to know?"

"Yeah…" thought Jimmy "Who's Meghan?"

"Meghan was Patrick's old partner, and I probably should mention that he was madly in love with her. During a mission about four years ago she died and well, you saw what he was like…" replied Katie mentally.

Suddenly, shaking Jimmy out of his thought-conversation with the computer, Patrick called out, "Kid! Take this!" Patrick passed him a VP-01. Nice pistol. Not too heavy either.

"Now remember, this isn't gonna be a simulation. This is the real deal, and not against stupid ass drones. Or stupid ass pirates for that matter. You'll be fighting real, thinking people so watch your ass out there 'cause I'll be watching mine," explained Patrick to his younger partner.

"Uhhh, ok. I've got that part down…" muttered Jimmy under his breath

"All right then. We'll head out in about 5 hours, so get your stuff together, and, take care off any business you have. It's a long fly out to Noblist space from here, and it's not like grabbing a bus, like you did to get here. Pirates will probably give us trouble, so keep an eye out, and don't fall asleep out there. That could, and probably would, be the end of both of us," continued Patrick, hardly losing any momentum.

"Ok then. Uh… just out of curiosity, what IS the mission anyways?" asked Jimmy, kind of bewildered.

"Well, first we're gonna scout out a pirate base, then, set some charges down. After that, the Noblist fleet will join us, and we'll help out with the fighting. Oh, and we'll help board the base, nothing too hard," replied Patrick with a slight chuckle.

"Alrighty then…" said Jimmy. He couldn't help but notice Patrick's cold tone of voice. He could tell that the man only had him along for strict business. No friends for him, once this was done, Jimmy had the feeling Patrick and him would part ways. There was something about the man that told him that he had once had, and lost, a partner, it had to be this Meghan person. Oh well, so be it. Who wants to hang out with an old grouch any ways?

"Sooooooo, how's life Pat?" asked Jimmy trying to strike a conversation.

"Mind your own business," replied Patrick, as though he was talking to a 5 and a half-foot tall slug.

Fine then, stupid old fart, thought Jimmy. The great Patrick wasn't so great, it would seem. Looked like the only thing this man could do was fight. Oh well, one job for 30'000 credits with this old fart wouldn't hurt at all. After this though, maybe he would stick around with the Noblist's for a while. Mercenary could make a pretty good living there, since pirates had taken a liking to the neutral country and extra escorts and rescuers were always in demand.

"Well then, I guess I'll be going… No need for me to stick around here…" said Jimmy as he walked off to do some very important things that didn't exist.

Patrick watched the kid walk carelessly, with his hands behind his neck, down the hangar bay towards the tavern he was staying at, the same one as Patrick. Patrick was making sure that he didn't get attached to the kid. He didn't want to lose another friend out there in the abyss. That mission four years ago was his last one with a partner. He had tried his best but…

Patrick quickly pushed those haunting thoughts to the back of his head. He was with the kid for business only. They would do this job together, and then be done with each other. The mission didn't even require two pilots, now that Patrick thought of it. He had gone over all the files, and there was zero need for a partner. It suddenly dawned on him what Captain Yeager was trying to do.

Captain Yeager was a good friend of Patrick for quite some time now and often hired him if he needed an extra man. He had been there four years ago, during that fateful mission that both changed their lives and lost others. He was one of the few who knew what happened. He didn't breathe a word to any of the Noblist's, in fact, no one who was there had ever told a soul. Yeager had often told Patrick to get a new partner, but Patrick hade always refused. So now the old trickster was trying to pull a fast one on him, and get him a partner. Well, that wasn't about to happen. Once this was over with, Patrick would leave the kid behind and give the old captain a talking to.

Patrick looked around and gave out a long sigh. Maybe a short little flight would clear his mind from all these dark and tedious thought. He headed off to his own ship to take a little pleasure ride. He sent a message to Jimmy telling him where he was and that he would be back within 5 hours for take off.

Jimmy was walking casually down the halls of the outpost. He was heading to the hangar, but was in no rush. It was still an hour 'till he had to leave. As he walked down the hall, he noticed quite a few more pirates were walking around, in larger groups then normally. They seemed to have a purpose, but Jimmy didn't take any heed to them at first. However, as the hours passed by, Jimmy started to suspect something was up. Even if he only wanted to find out what the stupid pirates were planning, that would probably end up in another fight.

He walked down the hallway even slower now, keeping a keen eye out for trouble. Something was up. He could feel it in his gut. He looked down the hall, and saw a group of Strike mercenaries talking in a corner, keeping to them selves. More Strike mercenaries were joining them now. He walked over to the group to find out what was going on. One of them looked over, and noticed him as the rookie from the hangar.

"Hey rookie, come over here," yelled the guy who recognized him.

Jimmy strolled up to them casually. He could see that they were all disturbed, and that something was definitely up.

"What's up?" he asked, still with his farce of a casual attitude.

"Have you noticed anything strange going on, kid?" asked a tall blond girl, in a hushed voice.

"Weeellll…" replied Jimmy, getting closer into the group, so that no one else would hear. "The dragon pirates have been acting pretty strange..."

"Yeah we've all noticed that. I saw one of them fooling around with a power terminal when I walked past he jumped, and practically fried himself. Also, communications have been having troubles lately, and all private messages in the past 4 hours have been lost and, to add to that, there have been a bunch of power failures all over the place, and more pirates ships have been landing during the past two hours then normally and few have left, said numerous people in the group, putting their own bits in when it came to them.

"So, there obviously gonna pull something, right?" asked Jimmy, knowing the answer.

"Right, we've already contacted most of the Strike personal on the base, except for Patrick, whose gone missing," said the guy who called him over.

"Shit," said Jimmy. "That's funny, me and him were gonna head out to Noblist space in under an hour."

"Ok then, here is the big one, what the hell do we do now!" demanded a shorter guy.

"Stick in groups, and get your stuff together. I've got a feeling we should be leaving soon. We told ALL Strike personal to get their stuff together, and head out. We'll all be leaving in about ten minutes. Something's up, and we should all leave as a group. We've alerted security, but they're a bunch of dumb asses and they all say we're being idiots. Well, we idiots plan on living another day. Come on; let's head down to the hangar. Everyone got their stuff?" said the guy who had called Jimmy over, and who was now obviously the leader of the group. Or at least, he was definitely leading.

Everyone nodded.

"Good, then let's head out now. I don't wanna stay any longer then we have to." Said the "leader", and, the rest did what all good troops are supposed to do. They followed orders.

The group of Strike mercenaries walked down the hall, hands resting on their C-class ports. The advanced computers allowed them shrink any equipment to a sub molecular size. The blond girl, who now seemed kind of out of place, walked with Jimmy.

The group entered the hangar, many breathing a sigh of relief. It seemed that every Strike merc was down there, now heading for their ships. Most Dragon pirates were staying in the shadows out of sight, still in larger groups then normal, other then that, everything seemed to be regular. Security was carelessly talking away; merchants ran here and there selling legal products, and the more "black-market" type; businessmen talked… business; and transporters loaded and unloaded their goods.

The groups started to break off, each heading for their own ship. The blond and Jimmy now walked together down to the end, where their ships were located. The blond looked around and started listing off numbers.

"Hmmmm. Hey kid, try to count how many Strike mercs you can see." She said to Jimmy.

The two of them stopped and started counting again.

"I count… thirty-one." replied Jimmy "you?"

"Same… There's a total of thirty-seven on the base, including the missing Patrick. Well, most of us seem to be here." She said.

"Ok then so lets…" Started Jimmy, when he was cut off by:

"GET DOWN!"


	3. Chapter 3, Run, dont walk

Chapter 3

The blonde cried out and jumped down, dragging Jimmy down with her. Every pirate in the hangar, and probably all over the base, had just opened fire on the people within. Men cried out in agony as their lives flashed before their eyes, a life, which for many, was ended in an instant. No one had expected the attack except for the Strike mercenaries. Many men had been simply talking with friends, or strolling down the hangar bay, when suddenly, bullets pierced their bodies and they fell limp to the floor, dead. Others were wounded horribly, and fell to the ground in pain, though luckily, alive. Still, others who had dived down upon seeing the pirates draw their weapons, or, who were lucky enough to have not been shot down at the beginning, had now taken cover, and, returned fire on the pirates.

Explosions could be heard all over the base, and power on most decks had been lost, including the hangar bays'. Men screamed out in pain as they were shot down unsuspectingly. Dead bodies now littered the hangar, most however, being unsuspecting men who were mowed down by the pirates during the first few seconds. With the lights out, the hangar bay was now mostly illuminated by the gunfire and lasers. The dim glow of the stars out in space also added an eerie light in the hangar. Ship lights and ship fire also added their own eerie glow.

Jimmy could hear a Strike mercenary captain commanding his men, ordering them to attack the pirates, "Show these pirates to the gates of hell! Open fire!"

The captain along with three other Strike mercenaries jumped out from behind a wall and opened fire on a group of pirates. The captain came out first and sprinted along the bay, firing away at the pirates with precise aim. He shot down two pirates and wounded another's right leg while his men were able to take out another three Dragons.

The captain lowered his two empty pistols and unloaded the empty magazines onto the floor. He quickly dived behind a ship that was still landed (probably because its pilot was currently busy being dead) to use for cover and glanced back as he landed on the floor. He saw that two of his men had been shot down and another was now diving behind the ship to join him. As the extra man dived down he pulled up his rifle and snapped off a couple of shots in the captain's direction. The captain thought that his man had gone mad, right up until the point he saw a bullet hit pierce through the man's head, bringing him down to the floor, dead.

The captain swiftly dived to the side, and looked behind himself, to find three pirates standing right behind him. One had a sniper rifle and was unloading his magazine, another was aiming at him with a shotgun and the third was armed with a long sword. Two others lay dead on the ground, with what looked like rifle wounds. The captain dropped his two empty pistols and rolled over to the body of his fallen companion and grabbed the rifle from his dead hands, time to add a couple more kills. The pirate with the shotgun opened fire on him, and the captain felt two bullets clip his left arm and rip apart his sleeve. He winced at the pain but quickly shrugged it off.

The captain quickly pointed the gun at the pirate and snapped off a couple shots. The pirate fell to the floor clutching his leg which now had three extra unneeded holes in it. The captain quickly got up from the ground and fell into a wall to support himself, and, also, to dodge a shot from the pirates sniper rifle. Luckily, the pirate who had owned the sniper rifle was obviously one of the first two dead, otherwise the captain would probably be lying on the ground right now, wondering whose brains he was holding. The pirate fumbled to re-cock the sniper rifle, but was shot down by the captain before he could snap off another shot.

The captain unloaded the empty magazine, getting ready to reload, but then noticed that he wasn't carrying any refills, so he tossed it to the ground and drew his dagger. He looked at the pirate with the massive long sword and doubted he was gonna win this win one. The pirate ran at him, wielding his sword above his head clumsily. Apparently pirates in these days don't use their old tools. He brought the sword swinging down upon the captain, who nimbly dodged it by ducking to the pirates left. He brought his dagger up and thrust it up the pirate's rib cage. Captain 3, pirates nil.

The pirate staggered back and swung the sword horizontally, with the last of his strength, cutting the captains arm off. Both of them staggered to the ground, too injured to fight on. They both clutched at their wounds, each one fatal, and that would be the death of each of them. The Strike captain glanced at the pirate and gave a smug grin, nothing more. The pirate spat at him and yelled words that shall not be uttered in this retelling.

Jimmy started to stagger up, but was quickly pulled back down, feeling a bullet whiz past his head as he hit the floor. He looked outside into space and could see ship after ship flying past the entrance, now fighting against the pirates for their lives. Stratford was out in "free space". It was not controlled by Union, Coalition or Noblist forces, although the base was closest to the latter. Because of this, there would most likely be no aid from any of the numerous "authorities".

Jimmy looked back behind him to see the blond lying on the ground, luckily as unscratched as he was. She crawled up to him, so he could hear her over the sound of battle raging on. They were behind about a dozen bulletproof crates, the same ones Jimmy had noticed in the hangar bay earlier that day when the pirates had been stalking him. The crates likely containing explosives, hmm… moving was looking pretty good…

"Jimmy, we've got to get out of here!" screamed the blond over the gunfire.

"I've got a ship about three platforms down from here! I think I can run it!" yelled Jimmy, barley able to hear his own voice.

"Alright, mine's just six more down, so running it is," said the blond, slowly rising into a crouch.

Jimmy did like-wise, and winced every time he heard a bullet whiz nearby. When he actually thought about running from here to his ship, he suddenly became very afraid, Jimmy could think and say brave things but actually doing them was quite different. How the hell was he supposed to run that far and not get killed! His hands rose up to his head, grabbed the front of his hair, and played around with it, a nervous reaction he had since he was a kid. He looked over to the blond, his eyes filled with fear. She looked at him comfortingly and put her hand on his shoulder and leaned over to him.

"It's going to be ok kid, just run as fast as you can. There's enough trouble the pirates have to deal with other then us."

It was true. By now everyone was fighting the dreaded pirates in full force. Most Strike personal had been expecting the fight, and, all those who didn't make it to the ships, were now fighting in full force. Pockets of organized resistance had already started popping up, most trying to reach their ships. All the men and women, who did manage to make their way to their ships, were now blasting their way out. They were either engaging the enemy ships outside, or, trying to run away.

"Ok kid, on the count of three, we run," said the blond kindly, as if speaking to a scared child (which, as a matter of fact, she was…).

Jimmy simply nodded and looked ahead of him. A bar fight was one thing, but a full-scale battle, with screams, explosions and fear, was much, much more. He had faced situations like this, but those were different, those were simulations. As Patrick said, this was the real deal, and not against stupid ass drones either. This was against real, thinking, living people. The boy had never even seen a battle like this in his protected childhood on earth. When he first got to the academy, he was the laughingstock of the class, because he was about the only person from earth to enter the academy in nearly 50 years. A life of danger and adventure is what he wanted, and now he really was getting it. Or, at least, he was getting the danger part.

The blond started counting down. Jimmy simply stared in front of him towards his ship, trying to convince his legs that moving was indeed the best plan they had. Unfortunately for him, his legs seemed quite determined that the safest place for them, was exactly where they were. What Jimmy didn't see, was the blond pulling out a pistol and holding it behind his head, pointing upwards.

"Three!" yelled the blond.

Upon saying that, the blond pulled the trigger of the pistol and the loud bang went straight to Jimmy brain. Upon hearing the loud bang right behind him, Jimmy's legs suddenly changed opinion and decided that instead of standing around, it would be wise to get the hell out of there. A little sprinting never killed anyone (Well… in this case, it just might…).

Jimmy jumped right up and went into a headlong sprint. The blond followed close behind, slowly gaining on him. Jimmy ran blindly down the hangar sweat beginning to form on his brow. Not once had he run so fast. He finally opened his eyes, and, almost ran right past his ship. Jimmy skidded to a stop and saw the blond run right past him towards her own ship.

Unfortunately, just as his feet decided that it was time to stop running and change direction, gravity decided to that it didn't want to get shot up, and left the building. Jimmy felt his feet leave the ground, and his legs flailed about wildly while trying to either stop his forward momentum, or just change its direction. Jimmy looked around the hangar and saw everyone else suddenly start leaving the ground. He noticed a lone pirate take notice to him and aim right at him.

Jimmy grabbed his K-59 rifle and opened fire on the pirate, but there was just one problem. Apparently the K-59 had decided not to work, and he heard the click of empty rounds go off. The pirate who was shooting at him also had the same problem. It suddenly dawned on Jimmy that only special weapons work in 0-grav. He cursed silently, not that it mattered since no one could hear him over all the fighting, and looked at the X-105 and wondered how he was going to get over to it. There was nothing around him to propel from, and, against popular belief, one cannot swim in space. He envied the few mercenaries who had grave manipulators. Even without the gravity the fighting still went on most of the mercs had switched to zero-g combat weapons the sound of viper rounds could be heard clearly by the hiss of the small rockets that propelled them.

Jimmy looked around, desperately looking for a way to get to his ship. It seemed that he was stuck were he was. He looked all around him but nothing was close enough to grab hold of. He suddenly recalled the VP-01 Patrick had given him. He pointed it in the opposite direction of his ship and snapped off a shot. It worked, but it was suppressed and gave no recoil to help propel him towards his ship in the slightest way. He cursed again and looked around.

He then saw a ship coming in fast and hard into the bay. It was a Union ship and was heavily damaged. The pilot strained to keep his ship steady but it was useless. The ship came crashing down into the bay. For a while it just remained there, burning away, but then the pilot quickly opened up the cockpit and propelled himself away from his burning ship. The entire ship was up in flames. Jimmy looked over to the ships engines saw a luminescent blue liquid come spewing out of the engines. Plasma. Not good.

"Oh Shit!" yelled Jimmy.

He turned his back to the ship and shielded his face. Suddenly men all over the hangar screamed and tried their best to get away from the burning ship. The flames raged on and Jimmy waited for the explosion. As soon as the flames touched the plasma, that thing was gonna blow it's lid off. Ships that were taking off put the engines on full power in an attempt to get away from the ticking time bomb. Everyone knew it what was coming, but few could do anything about it.

After a while, Jimmy started to wonder whether he was alive or not so he opened his eyes and uncovered his face to see for himself. Just as he did so, the ship blew itself into oblivion. Men went flying left, right, and center. People screamed as their bodies were ripped apart by the blast or melted in the heat. Jimmy felt the shock wave hit him and he was sent flying, luckily for him, unlike many others, towards his ship. He slammed right into the open cockpit, an even luckier turn of events. He could now hear those crates of explosives blowing the place to hell. At this time, his legs took a moment to congratulate themselves on the fact that their decision to get the hell away from those boxes. Now, at least there was plenty of light, though it wasn't very much appreciated.

"Activate A.I." muttered Jimmy as he turned around to face the controls.

"Hello Jimmy, good to hear from you again!" replied Katie, warmly not knowing what was going on around them.

"Oh my! What in the world has happened to you!" said Katie sounding like a worried mother as soon as she saw Jimmy and became aware of the situation.

Jimmy's face was covered in his own blood, and his back was ripped apart. Although he had covered his front from the explosion, he had lifted his head just as the explosion hit and shards of the ship plating flew out and lacerated his face. His back was also covered in blood. It was probably broken. Damn, this was definitely not good or lucky.

"Long bloody story, but, in short, the pirates are blowing the shit out of this place, Patrick's missing, and we gotta get the hell out of here." replied Jimmy painfully. It was painful to speak. He was on the verge of collapsing and it was a miracle that he was still conscious. Then with something that was almost a grin, he said "nothing too hard, eh?"

Katie looked at him, shocked that by many things. A) The fact that Jimmy was still conscious; B) the condition of the base and the sheer amount of pirates, and C) Jimmy was still able to make jokes about this whole thing. She now stood there, dumbstruck, looking at Jimmy in disbelief. He was going to get them all killed, most likely today if not another.

"You mind helping out? I can't get this thing running on my own…" added Jimmy as he closed the cockpit.

"Oh, sorry… I completely forgot myself…" replied Katie, quickly wiping the dumb look off her face. The ships systems all started to come online suddenly, and Jimmy could hear the engines roaring in the background. Lights started to come on and he could hear the weapons power up, this was something Jimmy never got tired off.

"Alright, everything is green. You sure you can handle this?" asked Katie in a worried voice, "You don't look to good..."

"I'm fine," replied Jimmy, with that slight smile again, "Besides, how else are we going to get out of here."

"Well… ok… but don't try any "heroics" all right? Let's just try and get out of here in one piece."

"No fun?" replied Jimmy sarcastically.

"Are you always this carefree?" asked Katie in a worried tone.

"Yep," replied Jimmy with a smirk.

"Oh god," muttered Katie, shaking her head, "Ok then… let's get this over with."

Jimmy nodded. He grabbed onto the control stick and put his feet on the pedals. He pushed down on one, and the ship started moving forwards. He shifted the control stick to the right and the ship turned right. He approached the exit and slowly gained speed. He could see the shimmer of the blue shield that kept everything inside the hangar, and, stopped everyone from being sucked out into space. Luckily, it hadn't gone offline yet.

He looked ahead of him and saw the blonde in her ship, already leaving. She looked over to him and waved good-bye. Then, she exited the hangar with all possible speed, and turned right, leaving Jimmy's sight.

"Who was that, Jimmy?" asked Katie teasingly.

"She's a fellow Strike merc," responded Jimmy, "and no, I don't like her," snapped Jimmy reading Katie thoughts.

"Ok then…" replied Katie in a "yeah, right," tone.

Jimmy cranked the speed up on the ship, and flew right out of the hangar into a battlefield. Ships were fighting all over the place. Ship wrecks floated everywhere. He could see the body of a pilot who had ejected into space, apparently that hadn't worked out to well. It would seem that those escape pods couldn't hold off the whole power of an attacking ship. The sheer number of pirate ships was staggering. The pirates outnumbered every one else three to one and the fact that the Union and Coalition fighters were fighting each other didn't help at all.

"I'm opening the com channel," stated Katie.

Jimmy heard a crackle as Katie tuned the com channel to the public channel. He could hear men crying out for help and talking to their partners. He heard a man scream for his life as his ship got torn apart, along with his life and body. Others were crying out for assistance and others responded, sometimes. Katie lowered the volume and set it so only messages directed at them would come on at a high level. He could still hear the others crying out for help but they were much softer.

"Here we go…" muttered Jimmy, rolling his eyes.

Jimmy drove his ship out of the hangar and away from the base as fast as he could. He hit a couple of switches and a dozen flaps on the ship closed up. Although these flaps aided with the maneuverability of the ship, when closed the ship gained tremendous speed. The only problem was that closing the flaps killed his maneuverability.

"We have a gunboat on us at five o'clock Jimmy," warned Katie worriedly "Incoming missiles."

Jimmy swore under his breath and started to lower the ship and went into a barrel roll. The scanners showed two dozen cluster missiles heading his way. There was no way he was going to get out of this un-scathed. He quickly turned off all weapons, shields and all non-essential systems. The lights went out and the view screen went blank leaving the only visual the window in the cockpit. He couldn't see behind him and had no idea how far the missiles were from his ship. He diverted all available power he could to his engines and prayed that it would be enough.

"They're right behind us," yelled Katie warningly, "Get ready!"

Jimmy, knowing that it was hopeless to try and out run the missiles at this point, quickly pulled off the only maneuver he could think of. Simultaneously, he cut off all the power to the primary engines, opened all the maneuvering flaps, and dropped the ship down on the astral plan as far as he could. Many of the missiles flew right past him but a couple missiles hit the back of his ship. He cursed under his breath for bringing down the shields and leaving the ship vulnerable to a direct hit.

"Power all systems again," said Jimmy tiredly, slowly losing strength and blood.

"Will do," replied Katie.

"That ship's aiming at us again," announced Katie.

"Damn it lets turn this thing around," swore Jimmy.

Jimmy rounded the ship about by pulling up and brought the ship into a flip and barrel roll to level himself on the astral plain.

"Power all weapons," ordered Jimmy. He was getting even more tired and was starting to feel light headed.

"You're mine!" cried out a loud, clear and familiar voice over the com-channel.

A ship suddenly de-cloaked off to the behind the gunboat. It let loose a hail of bullets and missiles and also shot of a small rail gun. The gunboat was taken completely surprise and was completely demolished.

A commanding voice came on loud and clear over the com "Eat that bitch! Who else wants a piece of the Strikes?" it was Patrick.

Upon hearing this, many pirates seem to take an offence to it and quickly decided to opened fire on Patrick. In an instant, Patrick engaged his engines and flew into an attacking position.

A screen popped up on the left HUD screen of Jimmy's cockpit "Kid I need you to target the enemy's engines once they're in range," Patrick yelled over the hail screen, someone was in a bad mood thought Jimmy and Katie gave out a tiny giggle.

"Roger that Pat" replied Jimmy tiredly.

Patrick stopped his ship instantaneously and did a heading flip and accelerated to full combat speed. Several pirates fell in line with Patrick and started trailing him. He let out his lashes and caught hold of two ships and set them off course. Ships dodged left and right to avoid crashing into one of the two ships.

Jimmy did as he was ordered and fell in line behind the pirates and Katie targeted their engines for him. Jimmy steadied his ship to get the best possible shot off at the pirates. Each targeted pirate had a red outlining box around them to show that they were targeted and also displayed the enemy ships status. Jimmy eyed these and pulled down on the center trigger of the control stick. Upon doing so, Jimmy unleashed a hail of lasers and missiles, completely destroying the pirate ships and wasting many missiles to boot.

"Kid I said fire on the engines not decimate the ships entirely," yelled Patrick, frustratedly, "This is what I get for working with a rookie."

Patrick flew his ship over to Jimmy's and they started to make a run for it.

"Jimmy I intercepted a transmission from the pirates," announced Patrick, "They seem to be after some courier transport ship."

"You mean like that one over there, that's getting the shit beaten out of it?" replied Jimmy with a chuckle.

"Ah, Shit," replied Patrick, becoming more and more frustrated and angry, "Well, break and attack," ordered Patrick, as he flew to defend the ship.

The courier ship was in a hell of a lot of trouble. About sixteen pirates were on top of it, beating it senseless. A courier ship normally flies without any escorts, since they're already a very powerful ship on their own, yet this one had four light fighters with it and one Saber ship. The Saber did a full flip and fired off a salvo of Decimators at a tightly packed group of pirates. Decimators were designed to create large explosions that push tight formations of fighters outwards. The pirates were separated and two of the fighters were destroyed. Although powerful, decimators take up an extreme amount of energy and take a minute to reload.

Jimmy watched Patrick dive into an attack on the pirates and he let out a long sigh. He was exhausted; his back was bleeding away and was most definitely broken. He didn't know how long he could stay conscious in this condition. As it was he had already stayed awake longer then most people in his place would have. He tried to ask Katie for help but he couldn't find the energy to speak.

"Don't worry kid; I'm going to start pumping some drugs into the air to keep you conscious, just something like morphine…" said Katie comfortingly, reading Jimmy's thoughts, "Don't try to speak, just think things. Remember, I can read your mind."

Jimmy nodded; he still wasn't used to this whole A.I. neural interface thing.

"I'm going to take care of most of the ships controls, if that's ok with you," said Katie eyeing Jimmy worriedly, "You oughta take it easy."

"No," replied Jimmy painfully, the drugs were already making him feel better, "I got it." Katie had to give the Jimmy some credit, he was very determined.

Jimmy grabbed the control stick and sent his ship into motion. He went into a barrel roll and dived down to aid the courier and Patrick. The sooner this was done, the sooner he could get out of this hellhole.

Katie locked weapons onto a couple of ships that were following the courier and Jimmy dived down behind them. He took quick precise aim and unleashed his valkyries on the doomed pirates, making sure the missiles were turned off this time before doing so. One of them broke off while the other stayed, unleashing all its firepower into the courier's backside. He quickly found himself in a world of hurt and broke off in an attempt to escape the hail of lasers he was under.

Jimmy quickly pursued the pirate and kept his weapons locked onto him. The pirate suddenly started to engage his warp engines and Jimmy could see his engines flare orange and his ship came to a complete stop. Jimmy thought about switching his missiles on when suddenly Patrick flew by the pirate and shot the ship into one hundred pieces without a second of hesitation.

"Watch it kid, you almost let him get away," yelled out Patrick, getting more and more frustrated at Jimmy every second.

"Patrick! Can't you see the condition Jimmy's in?" cried out Katie, peeved at Patrick for being so inconsiderate.

Patrick simply shrugged and went off to help out the courier. They quickly shot down five more pirates and the courier was able to slip away into the warp.

"Shit, we're going to get no where with this," muttered Patrick, "Attention all Strike personnel, form up at my position and let's get the hell out of here."

Twenty-three Strike ships came over to Jimmy and Patrick's position and they all entered formation. As a group, they flew out and struggled to break free of the large containment of pirates. They were still hopelessly outnumbered and another four ships were shot down before they started entering warp. Two more were shot down while they were jumping to warp.

"Come on kid, turn on your engines and let's get the hell out of here," yelled Patrick as he was about to enter warp.

He had now been worked up into a furious rage. This had been one hell of a bad day. He was stuck with a kid rooky as a partner for the next week, who was now shot up and in horrible condition, had to give away one of his best ships, was reminded of Meghan (something he always hated to think of) and now had to run away from an armada of gutless pirates. Nope, this was definitely not one of his better days.

"What the hell are you waiting for!" cried out Patrick as if he was going to tear out Jimmy's heart, as he was jumping to warp.

"Umm… Patrick, we got a problem."


	4. Chapter 4, We are so srewed

Chapter 4

"Oh god… what now…" muttered Patrick sourly as he shut off his warp engines.

"My warp engines aren't working!" replied Jimmy.

"What do you mean, not working!" yelled Patrick, in frustration.

"I mean, it dies out when I turn it on. Listen!" replied Jimmy, who was really starting to panic now. Jimmy cranked up his warp engines and the roaring began, as normal, but then suddenly died out.

Warp is a tricky thing that took mankind a very long time to figure out. It was discovered that space was weaker in some areas then others. The men and women of Earth tried for over a century to figure out how to study, explain and utilize this unexplained phenomenon. For a long time, scientists didn't even have the beginning of a clue as to what it really was. Then, a man whose name was, quite ironically, Arthur Warper, came into the lab. Many sci-fi fans found the man's name quite hilarious and it became quite a large target for comedians at the time, however, we shall return to the topic at hand. Arthur Warper was the scientist who finally uncovered the mystery of what would eventually become warp. He discovered that these tears in space lead to something that, even to this day, is not understood entirely. There were literal holes in space that, in hypothesis, must lead somewhere. It is unknown how these holes came into existence, whether they were built by a long dead civilization billions of years ago or a phenomenon of space.

After doing all the mathematics and a few experiments, Arthur developed the first warp engine. Unfortunately, this early warp engine was heavy, bulky, and, more importantly, could only be used once; this lead to mankind's exploration of the vaster reaches of space, and the creation of many new outposts. On the other hand, it gave law enforcement everywhere a much harder time chasing people down. As time progressed they developed better warp engines and eventually launched "Operation Stratford" which was, at the time, the farthest out station, and, would hold that rank for quite some time. They built Stratford station way out of reach of ant civilization in the south-western. Each warp hole lead to a different place and it was discovered that most points lead to a system, star or junction. A junction is a warp tunnel that leads to many more tunnels, saving the time of having to jump in and out repeatedly. It took mankind a long time to map out even some of these holes and tunnels, and the current map still has many gaps in it.

When a ship starts a warp, its engines seem to stall, so they can charge, and begin to let out an oddly large blue exhaust, then the ship seems to lengthen, though it does this from any perspective. Suddenly, it shoots out into oblivion. They are in fact sliding into the warp, where a pilot loses all control of his ship. Inside "the warp" there is an energy, somewhat like a tow cable, that carries you to your destination. Each tear acts like a door to a tunnel. Enter one side, be pulled through and come out the other. When a ship warps out, it is like the entry event, but played backwards. The ship seems to stretch in from oblivion with a large flash of blue light just as the ship returns to normal.

"Oh great, _just _great," complained Patrick, "Smooth move, dumb ass."

"Uh, guys?" interrupted Katie.

"What?" asked the two grouchy mercenaries in unison, already quite irritated.

"We've got company," stated Katie, warily, "We've got a huge Union battle company heading this way, and it'll be here in, say, one minute."

"What! Why didn't you pick this up earlier?" yelled Patrick. This day was getting worse and worse...

"Well, I just didn't see them," answered Katie, as if it wasn't her fault.

"What do you mean, you didn't see them," demanded Patrick.

"Weeellll, being shut off for a couple of years does that to an A.I., and I haven't had a tune up in, what, four years?" answered Katie accusingly.

"Oh shut up."

"Katie, if we live through this, I swear to you that I will give a full and all out tune up and a brand new coat of paint," said Jimmy, who was now starting to perk up thanks to the powers of morphine.

"Thank you, Jimmy, my favorite color is blue."

"I'll keep that in mind," chuckled Jimmy.

"It would seem the pirates are leaving," announced Patrick, "At least we only have one army to deal with now."

"Probably picked up that Union fleet," stated Katie.

"What the hell is the Union doing out here anyways?" wondered Jimmy.

"Probably coming for us." replied Patrick, "These ships were, how to put it… Stolen."

"Ah. Shit."

"And, I've got another fleet on scanners," interjected Katie.

"What now…" asked Patrick who was really just getting tired of all this.

"This one would appear to be our good Noblist friends, the Red Crimson," replied Katie.

"Who?" asked Jimmy.

"The guys who hired us," answered Patrick.

"They'll be arriving in two minutes," announced Katie.

"Let's just try to last that long," said Patrick.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and brought his ship about to face the oncoming company. Patrick did like wise. They both silently armed all weapons and stared into space. There would be no running from this fleet. All they could do was wait for The Red Crimson to arrive and then they'd be safe. Ish. Until then, all they could do was wait.

"Here they are," announced Katie.

Just as Katie said that, warp fields started opening all over the place, exactly where Katie had predicted them to appear. First came the frontal light fighters. There were about twenty of these small fighter to fighter ships. Behind them were sixteen medium fighters. Then, a dozen heavy fighter-bomber ships, bigger then what Jimmy and Patrick were piloting, but much slower. Jimmy and Patrick could probably take these types of ships down no sweat; their ships were almost equally armed and much faster. Next were the Gunboats, there were five of these.

All these ships formed a sort of bubble, as if protecting something. Then came the three cruisers, massive ships that were crewed by one hundred men. Jimmy and Patrick had no hope of defeating even one of these ships. They came in inside the protection of the smaller ships. Then in the middle of everything else came a huge ship. This ship was not a ship one saw everyday. In fact few ships this size existed in the entire galaxy. This was a capital battleship. The Union had about twenty battleships and three capital battleships. And this particular capital battleship was the biggest, not to mention most powerful of them all.

The basic design for most Union fighters was the same. A light fighter for instance was a lot like Jimmy's ship except smaller and only had one pair of wings going along the ship horizontally with the cockpit in the middle or back, like all Union fighters. These wings were also much thinner and only had two to four valkyries. The medium fighters were the same except bigger with better engines and weapons. These were very close to the size of Jimmy's and Patrick's ships. Heavy fighters were bigger then them, and were normally crewed by two men.

Then the ship design changes as you get even bigger, gunboats were large chunky things. The head of a gunboat was like that of an axe, in that it was sharp and pointy with a couple of small visual outlets which resembled eyes. The ship was shaped like that so that it could ram ships like cruisers and battleships. This then broke off into a bulky body which was covered with an array of weaponry which varied from ship to ship. Gunboats were normally crewed by a seven to a dozen men. It had four massive engines at the back that formed a square but these engines were moving a lot of bulk so the ship still didn't move very fast. Gunboats were used to fight everything from light fighters to even cruisers.

The cruisers were pretty much gunboats except about five times bigger. They were much bulkier with more guns, turrets and a massive battle cannon attached to the front. This cannon could obliterate any kind of fighter with a single shot and would render gunboats useless, however, the cannon was stationary and with a cruisers' slow maneuvering ability, it was very difficult to aim at small crafts. Besides, the cannon was not intended to shoot down small fighters. Its purpose was to shoot at other cruisers and battleships and stations.

Then came the biggest of them all, the battleship, or "capital battleship" in this case. It was a behemoth of a ship that dwarfed everything else in the vicinity. Normal battleships were the size of five cruisers, and were crewed by six-hundred people. The capital battleship was the size of seven cruisers and was crewed by close to one-thousand people. This was because it was one of the most heavily armed ships in the galaxy with two hangar bays, three large rail cannons attached to the front as well as one massive cannon that was attached to the front of the ship by three large beams, one for input power, one for output and another for Karthium, a highly lethal matter that was used to power many main battle cannons. The ship itself also had other guns and turrets scattered around it for sectional defense. The capital battleships' design was different than the other ships', there was a main body with the engines attached to the back, three rail guns, one attached to the bottom, one on the left and the other on the right and the main battle cannon attached to the front, and a hangar entry at the front of each.

This all happened in about five seconds.

Jimmy's mouth hung open as he read the name inscribed on the side of the capital battleship; The Liberty, the most powerful ship the Union. The Liberty was a new capital battleship the Union was developing, and, was supposedly the most powerful ship created by man. Well it certainly is the biggest, thought Jimmy worriedly. But this capital battleship wasn't supposed to be operational yet, thought Jimmy curiously, wonder and what in the blue hell is it doing way out here.

"Oh we are so fucked," muttered Jimmy.

"We're being hailed," announced Katie.

"Open the channel," ordered Patrick.

A picture of The Liberty's bridge and captain came up.

"Attention Strike mercenaries," announced the captain of the ship, "I am Captain Rachel Peterson of the Liberty battle company and you are now under arrest."

Rachel was in her forties now and looked it. She was a well-disciplined military professional who knew her place at all times. She was five-foot ten and was very well built. Her hair lay down on her shoulders and was light brown. Her voice had a North American accent.

"On what charges?" asked Patrick indignantly, though he knew damn well what he was being charged with and was just stalling.

"You are under arrest for a great many things," screeched a short Asian woman behind Rachel.

"The president?" said the bewildered pair.

"We've been after you for four god damn years merc. You know damn well why we're here. Those ships you are piloting are stolen property. You are responsible for the destruction of an entire top secret Union research station. And that's only the tip of the iceberg."

"Well let's ask the ship's A.I. if she wants to go back," piped up Jimmy, "Katie, do you wanna go back to the Union?"

"No thank you Jimmy, I would rather stay here, with the no good mercs," replied Katie happily.

"You damn bastards," swore the president, "Rachel, blow them out of the sky, _right now_," screeched the president once again.

The president of the Union, Akashi Hakaru, was a short Asian woman with black hair that barley touched her shoulders. In public, she was a graceful and kind woman but as soon as the public was gone, she was a despicable witch. She was a foul being and if the public knew what she was really like, they would have never voted her into her position. She had risen up through the ranks of politics through cheating, lies, blackmail and many other things that aren't very nice; like playing the pipe organ at social events.

"Umm, madam president, we need these ships intact," said Rachel, quite surprised by the way in which the president was acting, in fact the entire crew was quite surprised by this, "we can't simply blow them up."

"Captain, incoming fleet," said an officer in the background, "a large Noblist fleet is warping in right now."

"What." said Rachel completely blindsided by this.

"The cavalry has arrived," cried out Jimmy in joy.

A massive Noblist fleet began to warp in, in the exact same fashion as the Unionists did. The Noblist ships and Union ships were all of different make and design. It was easy to tell which ships were on which side.

Noblists relied more on fighters then cruisers. The Noblists had thirty light fighters, twenty-five medium, and twenty heavy fighters/bombers. They had no gunboats as the Noblists didn't even field them. There were two cruisers and one capital ship that rivaled that of the Union. This ship was the Crimson Sun, Capital ship of the Red Crimson; the top guns of the entire Noblist country.

Noblist light fighters had a slim frame with the cockpit situated around the middle with one large wing on each side that dipped downwards so that the ship sat down on its wings when landed and one engine at the back. Medium fighters were bigger with a third wing going out straight out the top and two engines at the back. Heavy fighters were, again, bigger with weapons attached to the hull and three engines.

Patrick knew for a fact that this was not the entire fleet. Christof was holding back dozens of fighters in his hangar bays. He would launch them in the middle of the battle and take the enemy off guard. The Crimson Sun was equipped with four massive hangars that also had huge runways from which ships could be launched. These runways were equipped with magnetic rails which acted as slingshots and hurtled ships into space. This way, Noblists didn't even have to power engines up to fly into space. In tight circumstances, Noblists would launch ships without even powering the engines though engines would be fully up and running by the time the pilot had engaged the enemy. This allowed them to shave precious seconds in battle. This also allowed them to launch ships completely undetected as once a ship was launched at top speed in space; there was nothing to slow it down. Since the Noblists performed so many infiltration missions, (although not many people knew this, as this was top secret information) this was very helpful.

A new picture and voice came over the com channel, it was General Yeager.

"Attention Union fleet, this is General Christof Yeager of the Red Crimson. These two mercenaries are under the protection of the Noblists. You are to leave this sector immediately," announced Christof with his thick Irish accent.

"General these mercenaries are wanted criminals of the Union star fleet, the ships they are piloting are stolen property and they are responsible for the destruction of an entire Union research station," replied Captain Rachel.

"Well if you really want them, you'll have to go through us, captain."

"Fine then, general, all ships, open fire."

With that, the two fleets opened fire on each other with a hail of bullets, lasers, missiles, rail guns and battle cannons. All the fighters broke of from the main bodies, into squads and opened fire on the enemy. Jimmy and Patrick set their com channels to the Noblists frequency. This was a well disciplined channel; talking was kept to a minimum, chatter was unacceptable. At first it was a little crowded with orders, commands and direction but soon things died down an orderly military fashion. Patrick and Jimmy kept an open channel with each other so that they could remain in constant communication without cluttering the military channel.

"Red Crimson, this is mercenary Patrick Deckard do you read, over."

A voice came over the com channel in reply, "This is the Red Crimson hangar bay three, what is your status, over."

"My partner and I are going to make an attack run on the Liberty's battle cannon, over."

"Alright then, all fighters are tied up at the moment so you'll be on your own, over."

"Copy that hangar bay three, over and out," replied Patrick, flicking of the com channel, "Jimmy, we're going to attack the main battle cannon of the Liberty, follow my six and stay close, we're going in hard and fast."

"Roger that Patrick," replied Jimmy, who was now on a little high from the morphine.

Jimmy and Patrick both engaged their engines and went off at full speed. Jimmy fell in line behind Patrick and followed him tightly. Patrick brought them under the main body of the Union battle fleet. Then, the stop the sneaking and charge straight at the battle ship.

"Don't let off any shots, we don't need to attract any attention to ourselves," said Patrick

"Roger that," replied Jimmy.

"A gunboat has sighted us, at three o'clock," announced Katie.

"Jimmy, take out the gunboat, I'm going in for the cannon."

"Will do."

Patrick went off dodging a couple shots as Jimmy broke off and drove straight at the gunboat.

"Katie, load all missile tubes and open fire with the valkyries."

Katie obliged without a word. The valkyries opened fire on the gunboat letting lose a hail of lasers. The Gunboat returned fire on Jimmy but didn't break off. Gunboats have a lot of weaponry and Jimmy was receiving a good third of this. Jimmy rocketed at the gunboat and flew right past it. Just as Jimmy got behind the gunboat, he cute his engines and spun the ship on a dime so that it was facing the gunboat.

"Launch missiles at the gunboats engines," ordered Jimmy.

Katie was a step ahead of him and by the time Jimmy had finished his sentence, the missiles had already made contact with the ship. Gunboats are very slow and cumbersome ships and their maneuvering is horrible. By the time the missiles made contact the ship had barley turned. There was also no shielding on the back of Union Gunboats so shooting one in the backside was quite devastating.

Jimmy then reengaged his engines and drove back at the gunboat launching two other missile barrages. The gunboats engines then blew up and tore apart the backside of the ship, rendering the ship incapable of damaging anything else as all its systems started to fail. Jimmy then drove of to aid Patrick.

Patrick was barrel rolling all over the place. His ships movements were erratic and unpredictable, he was flying this way and that and it was a marvel his brains were still in his head. Five of the capital ships Gatling gun turrets had opened fire on him and his shields were taking a beating. He glanced down at his shield strength, 70 and slowly falling.

"Blasted guns," muttered Patrick in annoyance.

Patrick locked onto the ships main battle cannon. It was held in place by three large support beams. If Patrick could take out one of those beams, the entire battle cannon would be rendered useless. Patrick was letting lose every weapon he had on the one of the beams weak point. He was now getting really close to the beam and flew mere meters away from the beam before pulling out.

"Jimmy, target these coordinates, then hit it with all you got."

"Roger that."

Jimmy barreled and dodged towards the main battle cannon. Patrick was following close behind, many would say too close. He was meters away from Jimmy's ship, one false move and they'd both end up dead.

"Kid watch your ass," warned Patrick.

"Shut the hell up and stop worrying," replied Jimmy, who was again starting to tire, again as the morphine began to wear off.

"Katie, lock all weapons, and fire when in range."

Katie locked the weapons and Jimmy came in hard. He was being fired on by six Gatling gun turrets and his shields were at 35, and falling. First Jimmy started firing the missiles and then the valkyries opened fire once in range. Jimmy let lose all he had before finally breaking off. He Patrick followed closely behind him, unleashing every thing he had. Finally, Jimmy and Patrick broke off mere meters away from the beam and turned around to go for another pass.

"Jimmy, use the Dark Lance," said Patrick.

"Roger that," replied Jimmy, "Katie."

"Charging Dark Lance," replied Katie, already two steps ahead of Jimmy as always.

The Dark Lance is a high power weapon that is normally only used on heavy fighters/bombers. It has also been armed and various medium fighters but these fighters are normally specialized for the use of them, and them alone as these fighters rarely have any other weapons armed. The dark lance is a high power laser, which is charged with dark-matter, a strange energy source that defies the laws of physics; it's hard to explain so the narrator of this story won't even bother to, simply saying that it's effects are devastating. This weapon takes up enormous amounts of energy and is fired sparingly. Medium fighters can normally only fire one shot before being rendered completely powerless; engines out and weapons down. Bombers can fire this weapon about once every minute or so without losing engine power.

Jimmy's ship could fire a Dark Lance about once every ten minutes while maintaining engine and weapon power, if he fired both and the same time, all systems would go off line except A.I. and life support. This is a very dangerous maneuver and leaves one completely defenseless. It was debated for a long time weather or not the ship should even be equipped with two Dark Lances, but, in the end, they ended up putting two Lances on. There were a couple reasons for this. First, in case one was damaged; the pilot could simply use the other. Second, since these ships were to be used by specialists, and as they were very expensive, the pilot should know when to use both. Third, as a dying act of revenge in case of a suicide mission or a hopeless situation, the pilot could fire these to cause the enemy great discomfort.

"Shields at 20 and falling," announced Katie.

"Divert all available power to the shields," ordered Jimmy.

"Will do," replied Katie.

The lights dimmed and many of the little blips and beeps of the ship went off. The sound muffler went off and Jimmy could hear the raging battle taking place outside loud and clear. One of the explosions outside shock his ship gravely and almost blasted him off course. It was one of the Union cruisers; the Noblists had just managed to take it down. One of the other Union cruisers was also badly damaged, the other with minor damages. The Union Capital ship was in mint condition on the other hand. It was indeed one of the most powerful ships in existence.

The Noblists had both their cruisers in full battle and were starting to take some real damage. The Union's massive capital ship's guns were also shooting down the Noblists' fighters. For the moment the Noblist's fighters had the upper hand on the Union fighters but that wasn't going to last long with those guns blazing away. The Noblist capital ship was in rough shape; it was taking heavy fire from The Liberty's main battle cannon and wasn't going to last much longer. The extra fighters from the Noblists had just been launched to quickly take down the second Union cruiser before the enemy could react.

Jimmy stormed back at the battle cannon with the intent of taking the beam out once and for all. The valkyries and missile launchers were offline to help with the shields and charge the dark lances. Shields were falling fast; they were now at 8; the morphine was also losing its hold. Jimmy burned with pain; he wasn't going to last much longer. The seven Gatling guns took they're aim at Jimmy and started blasting away before he was even in range.

"Dark lance charged and ready," stated Katie tensely.

"Wait till we have a clear shot," replied Jimmy, sweat dripping down his brow.

Jimmy slammed the ship into a sideways glide; he wanted to make sure he had a clear shot. The Gatling guns blasted away at him, slowly bringing his shields down. Jimmy brought the ship round and around till he was directly lined up with the cannon. There was where his mark lay, on the most tensed and weak point of the beam.

"Fire."

Jimmy felt his hull buckle and bounce as the dark lance fired. A long dark purple beam came blasting out of the lance and ripped apart the beam. The cannon suddenly jerked wildly as it fired another shot. It was no longer properly strapped onto the capital battleship so the cannon completely melted down and came of the ship. Jimmy spun his ship around and headed for the Noblist's capital ship.

"Hey kid, head over to the battleship, I'll cover you," said Patrick.

"Alright, Pat," replied Jimmy.

"We've lost all shielding," yelled Katie in his mind. He soon realized she did this because the noise of the battle and his ship falling apart would have made normal conversation hard.

Jimmy's hull began to buckle even more and suddenly he heard a roaring explosion right behind him.

"Damn! What the hell was that?" yelled Jimmy.

"That would be our engines."

"What!"

"We have a plasma leak. Weapons are offline."

"Damn. Turn on the com channel," said Jimmy, "Attention Crimson Sun, this is mercenary Jimmy Walker. I am about to make an emergency landing on landing bay three. I…"

Jimmy stopped in mid sentence and doubled over. He was suddenly hit by a train load of pain. It suddenly dawned on Jimmy that his morphine supply had been cut off. He didn't know why, maybe the ship ran out, maybe the system went down. He couldn't be sure. All he knew was that he was going to black out very soon. Jimmy struggled to keep his ship under control, but with plasma leaking, power failing and shields down, and his rapid loss in consciousness, it was becoming a little hard.

"This is Katie, Jimmy's A.I. We are coming in hard and fast. These is a plasma leak inside the ship, shields are down. Power is failing and the engines are literally falling apart."

"This is hangar bay three, we copy that," replied someone inside the hangar bays' control deck.

"Jimmy wake up, you have to land this thing," said Katie, who was only now becoming truly acquainted with the emotion of worry and panic. For the first time in her life she wondered what death would be like.

"We are not going to die," replied Jimmy who was slowly getting a hang on their neural link.

"I… I…, oh damn it, Jimmy, we better not die."

"We won't."

Jimmy flew by the main body of the Noblist fleet. With the main battle cannon down, the Noblists hand suddenly gained the upper hand. Although one of the Noblist's cruisers was heavily damaged, the Union had lost another cruiser and the other was now taking heavy damage. The Noblist capital ship was no longer in any serious danger as most of the major guns that could have caused it any major harm were destroyed. It wouldn't be long till the Unionists would be forced to withdraw.

Jimmy wheeled about in direction of the landing strip. He was coming in hard and fast. He opened all the air breaks and pretty much did everything he could short of shutting down all power in an attempt to slow down.

"We are coming in way too fast Jimmy," warned Katie.

"No shit, Sherlock," slurred Jimmy, half unconscious.

Jimmy steered the ship into the hangar bay. He was tired and in pain. There was barely any room in the runway to land. The crew had had short notice of his arrival and his condition didn't help. Jimmy heard the engines crack under the stress again and he felt the entire hull buckle and bounce even more. By now he was having his brain rattle around his head like a, well, baby's rattle.

Jimmy started to lower the ship onto the runway. Everything was beginning to appear very murky. He wasn't exactly sure what he was doing. He felt the world slip from under his feet leaving him in a very murky, distorted world. He started to lose his vision and he forgot were he was. He didn't remember a thing after that point. Everything went peacefully black.


	5. Chapter 5, The three companions

Chapter 5

Alexi Krousov hurried down the hallway as fast as he could without actually running. He had just heard that the ship was approaching the enemy, and that all hands were to head to their stations immediately. Like any good Coalition soldier, Alexi obeyed the order and executed it as fast as he could. His palms sweated nervously and his expression was a worried one. He had only been reassigned to this ship recently, and the captain had already shot five officers on the bridge. On top of this, Alexi had just been promoted to take one the place of one of the captains most recent victims. In the Coalition, life was duty.

Alexi was a man of average height. At 23 years old, the Russian had been serving in the Coalition army for five years. He had risen through the ranks quite quickly and had just been reassigned to the battleship Skaggerack a few months ago. He had black hair that covered his eyes when combed straight down but he normally wore it gelled into a downwards loop so that his hair just touched his forehead. His face was clean-shaven and his uniform was in perfect order.

Yet, contrary to his clean-cut look, Alexi's record was not spotless. It was marred with both honorary mentions, and disobedience marks. Alexi had his own way of doing things, which had often; lead him into trouble, yet, often saved many lives. If Alexi thought that his senior officer was incorrect in his judgment, he would tell him, without regard to rank or any kind of politeness. If he would not listen, Alexi would calmly take things into his own hands. Be that quietly disobeying orders or, as happened on one occasion, locking a senior officer in a storage container and leaving him there for 72 hours. On most occasions, Alexi managed to come out of the situation on top, but the officers would always request that a negative note be added to his record, claiming that they would never truly know whether his idea was best or not. Normally, as most saw it, it was.

A bald man ran up to Alexi in a hurry. Alexi had gained many followers in his short stay in this ship, thanks to his attitude, abilities and presence, many of which had met him on a ship other than this. If Alexi were a captain, this man would be his right hand man. He was 35 years old, with black skin; all his body hair was black as well (having no hair on his head). His eyes were even black (well not really black but really, really, really dark brown I mean no one has black eyes but if they did that would be so cool). He wore a standard uniform; mostly black with a red stripe down the arms and legs, and gray highlights here and there. His shirt was buttoned up and, like Alexi; his uniform was all properly laid out. He was six foot four, and as such, much taller then the average man. He angered quickly and was known for knocking men out when they bothered him. However, although he was quick to anger, he was highly educated and vastly experienced. For the past ten years, he had been doing some job on the bridge of every ship he was on.

Isaac had been on the Skaggerack for the past five years, all of which, as on all others, had been spent on the bridge. The captain on this particular ship was ruthless, and often gave out corporal punishment to those who failed in their duties. He had killed ten men in the past year, because of their complete failure in their duties. Although this was not a crime, most captains did not use this punishment and reserved it for the utmost idiotic screw-ups, which had either endangered the crew's lives, or, actually cost the lives of just some of the crew. He believed the failures were unacceptable, and in that, his actions were justified. This is why the Union used him as an example to their people to show the "evil" of the Coalition.

"Hello Isaac," said Alexi in a regal tone. He seemed afraid to Isaac, something that he rarely saw in his good friend.

"Hey there Alexi! Heading to the bridge?" asked Isaac, also in a regal tone.

"Where else?" replied Alexi glancing around himself suspiciously, "Out of curiosity, how many men do we have on the bridge?" asked Alexi, in a concerned tone, putting an emphasis on the word "we".

"Seven, though another 15 can get there within 10 seconds. Why do you ask?" replied Isaac curiously in a hushed voice.

"I just have a bad feeling about this, I feel like something big is going to happen. Something big and bad," answered Alexi, sounding worried.

Isaac simply shrugged, he had never believed in those silly feelings people got. How could someone get a feeling about the future? It was a ridiculous thought to him, so he just ignored them. However, he was careful not to argue with Alexi about this; the two had had many arguments about this in the past, some of which had lasted for hours. Hours were something that he knew they didn't have at the moment. As such, now was not the time to begin one. They were to report to the bridge immediately. The ship was approaching a small planet that had been resisting the Coalition. Their ship had been sent to "teach" the rebels a lesson. It was rare for an entire planet to rebel against the Coalition, but when it did, the Coalition did nothing to hide them. They would encourage them to speak their minds, and if possible of efficient, the Coalition would slightly change some things to fit the planet. However, if the planets were too rebellious or outspoken, the Coalition wouldn't hesitate to make an example of them.

In this particular case, it was suspected the Union had something to do with the planet's sudden rebellion. There were rumors the Union might be aiding the planet in some way so the captain was taking no chances. All hands were to be at their stations or ready to take the position of someone else's station in the case that they could not perform their duties properly. The captain seemed to be deciding that a lot of people "couldn't perform their duties properly" lately. Both Alexi and Isaac were expected to be on the bridge ASAP.

Just as the two companions went into a slight jog, a little running wouldn't hurt too much. Unfortunately, they jogged around the corner and smashed right into someone else. Alexi rubbed his forehead and wondered for a second what was going on. The last thing he remembered was walking with Isaac and then, he was on the ground. He looked at Isaac then at the boy lying next to him and he knew right away what had happened.

Alexi slowly got up, reached down, and helped the kid up to his feet. He was eighteen years old, and had messy blond hair, was white skinned (All right. Not "white" but what most people would call "white".), had blue eyes and was about five foot five. His Uniform was not as perfectly done, as were Alexi and Isaac's. His collar was unbuttoned at the top, and his sleeves were also unbuttoned at the ends. He wore his Uniform loosely; amongst most personnel on the ship, his loose look would stick out like a sore thumb, and he was lucky he hadn't been punished yet. He looked pretty strong for his age, although he was pretty short.

"Ugh, sorry about that," said the kid dizzily with an Arian accent.

Although many of the natural accents of earth still remained widely spread all over the universe, new ones had popped up all over the place, though mostly in the deep space colonies. When warp technology was first developed, it was costly and could only be mounted on massive cruisers. These cruisers would be launched in fleets to make new colonies far away from the rest of mankind. Eventually technology to go there and back would be developed, but for a long time these colonies were on their own, and because of this separation, the colonies would develop their own culture and accent. The Arian accent was a very carefree sounding one, much like the North American ones. There was, however, a difference. The Arion galaxy, being the first galaxy other then the Milky Way mankind ever populated, and therefore the having first colonists, without all the later conveniences that were worked out, caused the colonists to have a very rigorous journey and life. They faced many dangers and threats, and therefore life became very hard. The people tried their best to stay alive, but still managed to become kind of carefree somehow. Because of that, you will never find an Arian going over the little details in life, or eyeing out the small little problem here and there, but rather, sitting back, and enjoying the rollercoaster ride that is life.

"Its ok kid." answered Alexi, still slightly dazed as he helped the kid to his feet, "Who are you anyways?"

"Names… uh… Zack," muttered the kid, who was more dazed then Alexi, "Private Zackary Danzer. I was just assigned to the ship before it left planet Lyona."

"So… You've only been here for two days…" stated Alexi, while finishing regaining his senses.

Zack was just about to respond, when suddenly, he found himself pinned up against a wall, by a very tall, and enraged, black man who was about to beat his face off. Isaac stood over Zack menacingly; ready to rip the poor kids' head off. Zack struggled to get out of the man's grasp, but it was hopeless. Isaac was three times larger and more powerful than Zack, and could kill the little kid in about a second. Zack let out a small whimper and continued to try to struggle loose.

"Watch where you're going, punk!" yelled the enraged Isaac at the terrified kid.

"I…I...I... di… didn't mean to!" stuttered Zack helplessly.

"You know what?" asked Isaac as he raised his fist. "I really don't care."

Zack looked over to Alexi, praying for help.

"Isaac, put the kid down," ordered Alexi, no longer dazed from the crash.

Isaac looked grudgingly at Alexi, but, slowly put down Zack, though still angry at him for the accident. Zack dusted himself off and looked at Isaac nervously, still expecting him to jump on him and crush him into a tiny crack on the wall at any second. Isaac glared at Zack menacingly, as he was ready to jump on him and crush him into a tiny crack on the wall at any second, if Alexi wasn't around that is. Zack gave Isaac a worried smile then looked at Alexi with a face that begged him to call off his friend.

"Will you two calm down?" asked Alexi, already tired of the little fight, "The captain's going to kill us if we don't get down to the bridge right now. Wait… Zack, are you coming?"

"Yeah, I just got assigned there as an extra hand. Although I am trying to get transferred down to hangar bay as a mechanic." replied Zack proudly, already forgetting the little accident. It was a rare occasion that someone of his age was allowed onto the bridge of a ship.

"Really now, you any good?" asked Alexi, who always took an interest in others peoples skills as so he could catalogue them and use them got future reference.

"Good enough to build my own warp drive engine," replied Zack with a smirk.

That was pretty damn good.

"Well that's all fine and dandy but shouldn't we get our asses moving before the captain frags our asses?" said Isaac anxiously.

Alexi nodded and motioned Zack to follow. The three of them began to run towards the bridge now, as they were going to be late very soon. At this point it was either protocol or punctuality and they couldn't have both. They couldn't afford to be late, so they just ran as fast as they could down the hallway. At any other time, this would be strictly forbidden, but, at the moment, the ship went from yellow to red alert. Everyone started running. Something was happening and the only way any they were going to know exactly what it was to get down to the bridge.

Alexi began to sweat even more now. Something really bad was going to happen. He knew it, he was sure of it, but didn't know how he knew. He felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach and this only heightened his "bad feeling". His feeling of foreboding had just told him that it was nice knowing him and that he hoped they would meet again in another life, as this one would be ending soon. Not just for him, but for everyone, and not just those aboard the ship, or even just in the Coalition, actually everyone. He had a feeling that today, right at this very moment, events that would change the course of history were unfolding, and not necessarily in a good way. As to what these events were, he had no clue, but the knot in the pit of his stomach was getting bigger and tighter as the approached the bridge.

They rounded another corner and saw the entrance to the bridge. Upon its sight, the three of them slowed down again to a rapid pace and the knot suddenly became huge. It felt like the knot no longer existed solely in the pit of his stomach, rather it was now enjoying its new residence inside his entire midsection. Alexi, although feeling this strange sense, remained cool-headed. He lifted his head straight and composed himself. Anyone who looked at him would have never guessed that he was afraid for his life at this point. He couldn't afford that on the bridge. He could not show this to the entire crew. It could be nerve racking for many, and he was highly respected by many others all over the army. He could not let them see him confused and superstitious, or, rather, he would not allow it to be seen.

Alexi looked at Zack and Isaac worriedly for two brief seconds and muttered "I've got a really bad feeling about this. I feel like everyone's lives are about to change."

Alexi didn't mind showing his fear and feelings to Isaac. The two of them had had their fair share of close calls and had saved the others' tail more then once. They used to keep track of who owed who their life at the moment but had lost count lately. It didn't matter though since the score always seemed to even itself out at one point or another.

As for Zack, Alexi had a good feeling about him too. Was it coincidence that they bumped into each other or rather fate? Alexi was a firm believer that every man had a fate. He didn't believe that one was born with a fate, but eventually, one fell into a path that would be ones destiny. He believed that little coincidences, just as this one, had much larger purposes. And on top of this, he just had a good feeling about Zack.

Isaac tilted his head towards Alexi and muttered in reply, "What the hell could happen, we're attacking one small little planet. We're probably on red alert because of some punk mercs are helping the renegades, or… maybe the rumors about the Union _are_ true, but even if they are, it's still no biggie. This is a little walk in the park for us. This isn't going to change the course of history or anything."

"Yes well it's the little events in history that change the world," muttered Alexi in return.

The three of them approached the bridge, backs straight and heads raised high. None of them knew what was coming; none of them knew that upon walking into that room together, they had sealed all three of their "fates", as Alexi would say. They had no clue that they would make history as the Coalitions' greatest heroes. They had no idea how great they would become. All they knew was that if they didn't get onto the bridge and do their jobs properly, they would be very dead.

The three companions entered the bridge, with no warning what so ever.


	6. Chapter 6, Time for a bit of mutiny

Chapter 6

Alexi, Isaac and Zack walked onto the bridge almost completely unnoticed and walked over to their stations. Isaac was the tactical officer while Alexi was the wing coordinator. Zack simply stood at the door; he was there as an extra hand in case someone couldn't perform their duties, aka, got shot. Everyone was busy doing something or another. The bridge of a Coalition ship was much bigger then other ships. It had four screens in the center for information display, transmissions and external readings. Underneath that was a hologram table which displayed the field of space around them, though it was generally used for battle. Around that was a ring of control consoles and monitors with a banister above them, this was about four yards away from the table. Then about a foot or two higher was another ring of consoles and controls. Coalition ships tended to have almost every possible thing in the bridge so that the ship could be entirely operated from the bridge, if need be.

The captain walked around this room at times, but normally stayed near the holo table. The captain of this ship was currently leaning down on the table, examining the battle scene with disbelief. The rumors and reports about the Union helping the rebels were true, very true. He was now faced by a fleet three times stronger that what he had. It consisted of rag tag ships off the rebel planet, Union vessels of every kind and a large contingent of Dullrath mercenaries.

"Are all our wings deployed?" asked Captain Charles, angrily.

The captain was the sort of fellow that wasn't too often called fellow. "Asshole" seemed to fit more, or, "yes, sir" in a panic, after he heard you say the first. His face was unshaven and covered with the prickly beginnings of a beard. He also had a sharp nose and bone structure which made him look all too unhappy. His black hair had begun to gray but it was still fairly dark. It was short but a little wavy none the less. He was about five foot eleven, and of average strength for his age, which was somewhere in the late fifties or early sixties. No one had ever mustered the courage to actually ask him. His teeth were a little crooked and even the way he stood had a tinge of crookedness. In short, he was a crooked, mean man.

"Yes, sir, all wings are deployed," replied Alexi.

"Weapons?" demanded the captain.

"Every turret is armed and manned and cannons are firing at full capacity, sir," replied Isaac.

The captain looked up at his first officer who shook his head hopelessly. They both looked down at the holo table and wondered what to do next. They had been taken by complete surprise, as most of the enemy had been hidden behind the planet. This had been the Union ships, a battleship, one cruiser and two dozen fighters. This, they could handle, their battleship was bigger then the Unions' and they had thirty fighters, all of which were more powerful then the Union's fighters. They had headed straight at the Unionists at full speed ready to destroy them. They had position themselves close to the moon so that they could duck behind if need be. Then, a group of fighters from the planet had attacked from behind, and they had to deploy fighters to attack them. This would have been a tough but manageable spot, but then the Dullrath mercenaries had attacked from the moon. Yes, the moon. They had been landed on the moon which had a dense atmosphere of thick gases and other things that didn't support life. The Dullrath mercenaries had been able to land there and remain undetected until they started up their engines. They had flown right out of the moon and attacked the battleship head on. The ship hadn't had any fighters to help as they were all occupied with either the rebels or the Unionists.

This was a very, very bad situation. There was a chance of somewhere less than zero of winning this fight.

"Captain Sir," said an Edison at one of the scanners, "shouldn't we abandon ship?"

Charles turned around and glared at the officer menacingly, with hatred in his eyes. The officer looked around nervously. It was a simple suggestion, he thought. No doctrine said that abandoning a ship was wrong. He figured that the hundreds of men and women on the ship should have a chance to live and fight another day but apparently the captain had other ideas.

"Abandon…" repeated the captain with cold fury clearly apparent in his voice, "If I hear that word one more time, I'm gonna frag the speakers ass, got it!"

"But, sir…" started the compassionate officer.

The Captain turned around, whipped out a lunger pistol, and shot the officer where he stood. The bridge went silent as the officer's dead body fell to the floor. Fear ran through the veins of everyone on the bridge. No one dared move a muscle. Well… almost no one.

Zack slowly walked over to the position of the unlucky officer, moved his body and took over control of his post. Zack pushed a few buttons and looked at the screen intensely. He then lifted his eyebrows in an expression of realization of something he had previously misunderstood. He punched a couple of buttons happily and then looked up and around the bridge since he had a funny feeling that somebody was staring at him. As he found out, there was somebody who was looking at him. A whole lot some bodies actually. Zack thought for a moment and then decided that he should say something to explain what he was doing.

It was at that point, after that decision that Zack decided to look up and say "For every silent moment in the world, another baby cries and shits his shorts."

Most of the crew found this at least a little strange, and didn't know what they should do. Isaac and Alexi stood at their posts chuckling quietly while shaking their heads. The captain looked about angrily while his tiny brain ticked away, trying to think of something to say.

"Come on you slackers get to work. We're still in battle," ordered the captain with his all-around "mean" voice.

The entire crew quickly got back to work like a dog that's just been whipped. They were down to two-dozen fighters and the battleship itself was taking a beating. Coalition battleships were generally more powerful then Union ones and of it had been a battleship vs. battleship, the Coalition would have won. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and the Coalition battleship was probably only going to last another ten minutes. The captain again took the stand and started yelling out orders.

"Order the fighters to focus their fire on the mercenary and get all the guns that can shoot at the battleship do so."

"Aye aye, sir" replied Alexi and Isaac.

"Shields are at… 21 and falling sir," stated Zack.

"We've lost half our anti-fighter turrets sir," announced Isaac.

Suddenly the entire ship shook, and every one in the bridge lost their footing for a brief moment, but quickly regained it and no one was injured. Coalition battleship bridges are usually situated deep in the middle of the ship and are therefore very hard to target. In fact, it is normally quite difficult to detect anything on a Coalition battleship. The Coalition is constantly coming up with new ways to jam sensors or fake them; once a captain managed to trick an entire enemy battle company into thinking that the weapons and engines were located in one of his cargo bays. The enemy relentlessly pounded this cargo bay the entire battle, while the Coalition captain was able to take out all their engines. Since that battle, the Union never quite targeted the exact same place on any Coalition battleship. It was well known that the Union relied more on numbers then the Coalition while the Coalition relied more on tactics, technology, surprises and power.

The battle continued to rage on outside the battleship in a hellish way. The rebel fighters were attacking the engines and causing a lot of harm. The mercenaries were destroying all the Coalition fighters and turrets. The Union cruiser and battleship were beating the hell out of the Coalition ship as each ship fired off broadsides at each other while the Union fighters hammered the Coalition weapons.

"Warp engines are down, main battle cannons are down, and shields have fallen below ten percent." stated Zack, bleakly.

"Damn it," swore the captain.

Another blast shook the ship and the entire hull creaked. That could only mean one thing.

"Sir, shields are down," said Zack, worriedly.

"Thank you for stating the obvious," replied Charles.

Alexi took a look around the bridge. Moral was at an all time low. Everyone here knew that they were dead. There wasn't that much time left until the hull was completely ripped apart or something inside blew and destroyed the ship. Everyone continued to perform his or her duties unhappily, waiting for the inevitable. Reinforcements were on the way but wouldn't arrive for another twenty minutes. That was definitely long enough to destroy the battleship and its fighters and there wasn't a chance in hell that the captain would order them to abandon ship (And, as an interesting side note, hell is exactly where everyone guessed the captain would end up.).

"Bring the ship behind the moon, let's get out of the way of those battle cannons. Order all guns to focus fire on the fighters," ordered the captain.

Alexi wondered for a moment if the captain actually thought they had a fighting chance, or if he found death in battle truly glorious and honorable. Then again, maybe he was simply looking for a way to escape his miserable life. It was said that he wasn't always like this, but, during the war he had lost his entire family and had been left all alone ever since. This and a life of cruelty and far too many hardships, had left him in the cold miserable state that he now lived through.

The pilot silently obeyed his order and brought the ship behind the moon where the Union cruiser and battleship couldn't see. The Unionists would have to slowly advance upon the moon and turn around it to get a clear shot at them. It didn't really matter though, the Coalition had few fighters left and they would be lucky to last much longer against the fighters alone. The captain had merely extended the time until their demise. One of the officers began to pray.

Another explosion shook the ship.

"Sir, deck six is in critical condition, and hull integrity is falling…" announced one of the officers.

"How long till it blows?"

"Roughly… twenty seconds, sir."

"Eject it."

"But Sir…"

"Right now, private (Demoted)!"

The officer punched in a couple of buttons and wiped some sweat from his brow. He had just ejected an entire deck filled with people that could have been saved if only the captain had waited a little longer. Everyone on the ship could hear the charges blow as they separated the deck from the ship. Shielded windows suddenly went off on the deck and people were sucked out of the ship and into the vacuum of space. There had been no warning whatsoever. The captain had simply ordered the ejection of the deck without a word to the people inside. It would have been possible to wait until five seconds until the hull gave way, before ejecting the deck. There had been about seventy people on that deck and in those few seconds they could have evacuated forty maybe fifty of them from the deck. Others would have had a chance to jump in an escape pod or put on a space suit and pray to be picked up. But it was a little to late for all of that now wasn't it.

"Sir," said Alexi, inquisitively.

"What is it, lieutenant," demanded Charles, angrily.

"Why didn't we evacuate that deck sir?"

"Not enough time."

"Sir."

"Are you questioning my orders lieutenant?" asked Charles furiously.

"Yes sir, I am," replied Alexi calmly.

Charles reached down for his pistol again. He then brought it up, just as fast as he had at the time when he had killed the other unsuspecting officer. He aimed the gun at Alexi and a loud bang echoed around the room. He then dropped the gun to the floor. Something didn't feel quite right though, and he put his hand to his chest. It appeared that the thing that was wrong was the fact that there was a rather large hole where his internal organs used to be. The pain didn't help clear his mind either. He looked down at his chest a lifted his hand from it. He could feel the warm flood on his hand and his eyes opened wide in terror. He then looked up again at Alexi who was still holding a lunger pistol in his hand, aimed right at the captain. Charles gasped for breath but found it incredibly hard. Alexi shot him again and the ex-captain fell to the floor, dead.

Isaac quickly drew out his communicator and called for back up, the Mutiny was on. Most other people were too confused or dazed to do anything. Zack wasn't one of them and he noticed that one of he security guards weren't either. He saw the security guard reach for his communicator and pistol and knew that this couldn't turn out good. Zack reached down for his pistol, a lunger which was what every Coalition officer from Cadet to Admiral had, except, once you got to Admiral, you could normally afford to buy a better gun, or, modify your current lunger.

Zack drew his pistol and clumsily shot at the security guard. Zack didn't have a very good shot and whipping his pistol out so quickly didn't help it either. The bullet only ended up in the general area of the security guard, but no matter how bad the shot, if a bullet whizzes past you, you stop whatever you are doing and take notice to it. The security guard then took cover and loaded his pistol, which for some inexplicable reason he had left empty till now (which was quite stupid on his part). Zack knew he had only a couple of seconds to get behind cover, but unfortunately for him, he was left out in the open. Luckily, Zack didn't have to worry too long. Two men came crashing through the door and quickly took out the security guard with ease.

Now, thanks to Zack quick and brilliant thinking, the bridge had broken out into a bit of a gunfight. All of Alexi's followers knew exactly who to shoot at, while everyone else didn't have a clue who to blow away, except for the security that is. Most of the other people simple laid low and prayed that they didn't get shot. If their enemies outside could see this, they'd be peeing their pants in laughter.

Alexi crawled over to where Isaac had taken cover. Isaac was shooting at just about anyone who shot at him and that was many, many people. That may have been because he had two pistols and was yelling like a maniac. He was also managing to scream insults at several different family members of the people around him at the same time. It was a fairly impressive feat.

"How long until the ship blows?" asked Alexi worriedly, interrupting Isaacs' tirade.

"Well, now that we are behind the moon, without those cannons shooting at us, I'd say that we have about seven minutes," replied Isaac.

"Damn, that's not long."

"No, it isn't, so we have to end this fight fast."

"Alright," finished Alexi who then popped out of cover to opened fire.

The gun fight didn't last too long and was finished in about a minute. The security guards that had been out had been caught with their pants down (so to speak that is, no one here was going commando) and had been surprised by the attacks from the mutineers coming onto the bridge. In fact all over the ship, Alexi's rebels had already taken over. At the beginning of the fight, Isaac had called all the loyalists on the ship and gave the order to take control of the ship. With the amount of confusion and panic going on, it wasn't that hard. Other people on the ship didn't even notice that there was a mutiny or that the ship had switched in control, over to Alexi. Other then the bridge, the engine room was the only room that one truly required in order to have control of a ship, and, more then two thirds of the people down there were loyal to Alexi, so this had gone over pretty easily. Other stations had also been taken over, but they were not required and simply made life much easier.

Alexi and Isaac stood in front of the holo table and assessed their situation. They were now safely behind the moon. There were very few fighters left, but, while watching the table it was a hard to tell exactly how many. The image kept on flickering on and off due to the amount of damage the ship had taken, it was a marvel the table was still functioning.

"How long do you think we have now," asked Alexi.

"I'd say we have four, five, maybe even six minutes if we're lucky, hard to tell with this crap ass image. Don't think the fighters should stick around though; the few that are left should make a run for it. If they stick around, they'll just end up as more dead men and whoever has survived this long must be pretty good. Not worth loosing anymore men and women in this hopeless fight," replied Isaac.

"Alright," replied Alexi, "Zack, how many fighters do we have left."

"Three, sir, with warp drive intact," answered Zack.

"Alright then, call them up and tell them to get the hell out of here," ordered Alexi.

"Aye, aye, sir."

One of the rebel officers walked up to Alexi and Isaac. He had a wound on his left shoulder but this didn't seem to bother him too much.

"Sir, we have full control of the ship, what are your orders," asked the officer.

"Excellent, set the self-destruct to go off in five minutes. Let's make sure we go out with a bang. Set the auto pilot to start flying the ship over to the Union fleet in four minutes and patch me into the com system."

"Will do sir."

The officer ran over to a terminal and did as he was ordered to do. He got someone else to set the auto pilot and activate the com channel while he started to activate the self-destruct. A little beep went off that stated that the com channel inside the ship was activated.

"Attention crew," began Alexi, "this is 1st lieutenant Alexi Krousov. My men and I have now taken over the ship. The ship is set to run at the Union fleet in four minutes and self destruct once it reaches them which will be in about five minutes. I am not asking any of you to give your lives away therefore I am _ordering _everyone to abandon ship, Krousov out."

Another beep went off that stated that the com channel was off.

"Sir, I can't get the self-destruct to activate. It's encoded and only the captain can activate it," said the wounded officer.

"Is there any other way to self-destruct the ship?" asked Alexi.

"I could try to hack it," offered Zack who had finished his duty.

"Alright then, give it a try. How long do you think it will take you?" asked Alexi.

"One, maybe two minutes."

"Alright, get to it. I want everyone else to get to an escape pod immediately. Wait until the escape pod is filled to the brim or until there's one minute left. I'll be out once the self-destruct countdown is activated. Now, everyone get out of here."

Everyone started filing out the bridge, and off to the escape pods. The escape pods were situated all over the ship, normally in groups of three but it could range from one to even six in some places. An escape pod could hold up to fifteen people when filled to the brim. All personnel are trained on how to pilot an escape pod. It isn't a very hard thing to pilot when the auto-pilot is on but chances are that one in fifteen people are a trained pilot so it is possible to take the auto pilot off and drive it manually. Escape pods didn't have any weapons on them but did have engines and therefore could fly around freely. The Coalition was working on a small warp drive to put in escape pods so that they could make a safe get away, but it was currently in the works.

After a while, the only ones that were left on the bridge were Alexi, Isaac and Zack. Alexi and Isaac stood nearby Zack as he tried to hack into the computer system and activate the self destruct. They could all hear the panic of people rushing to the escape pods and the bangs of engines starting up and launching out. Isaac tapped his foot impatiently as his eyes lingered on the closes exit. He had proposed that they leave now and leave Zack to his work but Alexi would hear none of it.

"We really should get going you know," said Isaac.

"The Captain is the last to leave his ship," stated Alexi.

Isaac could have pointed out to Alexi that he was not the captain of the ship but decided not to waste his breath.

"You know you could leave if you wanted to," said Alexi.

Isaac looked over at Alexi with a frustrated look. Alexi was smiling smugly as Isaac grunted and snorted, but gave no real response. There was no chance in hell Isaac was leaving him behind.

"Hey kid, you almost done?" asked Isaac impatiently.

"Hang on a minute, this hacking business takes time," replied Zack who was a little preoccupied, "it's a fine, delicate, art," he added off-handedly.

Zack kneeled down and open the underside of the terminal and ducked into it. He started to take some wires here and there off and reconnect the others again. This would have been pretty stupid in most cases, but Zack had the foresight to put on some gloves as he disconnected and reconnected live wires. Isaac and Alexi could see flashes of light going off in the terminal as Zack worked away.

Zack finally, after about a half a minute of hot wiring the computer, seemed to stop working and looked around the terminal smugly. Suddenly a large blast shook the room and sparks flew across the sealing and a support beam fell down to the floor. Zack jumped up startledly and smacked his head on the top of the terminal. He then fell flat down onto the floor, which ended up causing even more pain to his already bruised head.

Zack slowly crawled out of the terminal rubbing his sore head gingerly. He stood up, punched in a couple of buttons on the interface and then took a step back. A loud computerized voice came onto the com channel and the three companions heard some worrying words.

"Two minutes and thirty seconds until self-destruct."

"Shit, let's get going," swore Isaac.

Alexi and Zack both nodded in agreement and the three of them made a dash for the nearest exit. Isaac and Zack ran straight through the exit off to the escape pods but Alexi stopped at the door and looked back to the bridge. Had he done the right thing? Was what he was doing now right?

The ship shook again and two more beams fell from the ceiling. Alexi looked at the body of the dead captain and then at the body of the innocent officer he had shot. The moment of self doubt left just as easily as it had come. Things had certainly changed from when they had entered the bridge. Here, he was the leader of a mutiny and he would wonder what his punishment would be. There was a very high chance that he would be executed but he would not run from that chance. This had been the right thing to do. He was saving hundreds of people's lives and if he was killed for that then so be it. That to him was a glorious and honorable death, and he would accept it, if fate brought him there.

The computer promptly reminded Alexi that there were only two minutes remaining until the self-destruct went off. Alexi looked behind him and saw Isaac and Zack running back towards him. He then walked over to the fallen body of the officer that the captain had shot and picked him up. Isaac and Zack ran into the room quickly and saw Alexi dragging the dead body with him. Zack immediately ran over to Alexi to help him while Isaac rolled his eyes and then, he too ran over to help them out.

Alexi's worried feeling at the beginning of all this apparently hadn't been for nothing. Their lives had certainly changed quite a bit since they had entered the bridge of the ship. But they could not fathom how much their lives would change from then on. In fact the entire course of history and taken a drastic change and they had only seen the tip of the iceberg. The three companions walked out of the bridge carrying the body of the fallen officer with them, off to an escape pod, and their future.


	7. Chapter 7, Angels in Heaven

Chapter 7

The last conscious thing Jimmy could remember was flying his ship into the Noblist's capital ship's runway. Things had looked grim, at the time; Jimmy thought that there was slim chance he was going to make it. He and Katie had been hard pressed to keep the ship in one piece, much less land it properly. The ship was low on power and the plasma coils had started to leak. This had lead to erratic, uncontrollable engines. The ship had been flying into the hangar far too fast and Jimmy had doubts that even the hangar would survive the crash.

The runways had had short notice of Jimmy's landing and had been just as hard pressed to clear a strip to land on. As it was, when Jimmy and Katie had been coming down, the runway crew had still been clearing it. When they had hit the ground, the engines had still been roaring away. Jimmy heard the crunch of the ship's under-plating ripping apart. He had cut almost every single system on the ship. All the air breaks had been opened and the engines power cut, but they had still been heading in way to fast. Then, everything went dark (And that isn't good by any account.).

Now, Jimmy's head felt murky and his thoughts came hard. All his ideas were mingled together. Everything was dark; he couldn't see a thing. Maybe I'm dead, thought Jimmy. This lead to two mixed feelings on Jimmy's behalf; on one side, being dead could, perhaps, be quite an interesting thing. Maybe he would become a ghost and haunt some abandoned ship. Or perhaps he would roam around space, watching the dealings of the living. Or maybe he would even go to heaven and live all of eternity there in happiness. Nah.

On the other hand, being dead would mean that he would never be able to do many of the things he had wanted to do when he was alive. He had been looking forward to the great fight against the pirates and he hadn't been on any grand adventures yet. He hadn't truly loved or been loved either. Well… he loved his parents but that was quite different. Love had not been a huge priority during Jimmy's life but he suddenly felt a loss after being killed. He doubted that one could fall in love when one is dead.

At this point Jimmy managed to convince himself that he was indeed alive. He could die later and experience all the interesting parts of death some other time. For now, he had many good reasons to stay with the living. He was sure he was alive; he was merely asleep or unconscious. To wake up, he had to merely open his eyes.

Jimmy swam through his sub-conscious, determined to find the part of his mind that could open his eyes. He groaned and shook his head. He was determined. At least, he was as determined as you can be without actually being conscious. Finally, he found the part of his mind that opens ones eyes. Good. Now all he had to do was find the energy to open them. Jimmy could not remember another point in his life where opening his eyes could be so ridiculously hard. He rolled onto his back and brought his left hand up to his forehead and rubbed it.

He could now hear voices outside. People were talking very close to him. He could not make out what they were saying, but he heard about three or four of them approaching him. Jimmy strained to hear intelligible words but he could not make any of the words out. Jimmy put all his willpower into hearing what they were saying, because if he was captured by the Union, he might be better off simply not opening his eyes after all. According to Jimmy's, admittedly, slightly confused memory, the Union hadn't been too friendly to him in the past.

"Hey there, you awake?" asked a voice in a concerned tone. It was a female sounding voice that sounded like it was hovering over his head. Jimmy managed to open his eyes for a few fleeting seconds.

A girl with long, fiery red hair that came down almost came down to her elbows, was standing over him. She had dark blue eyes that stood out in strange contrast to her bright red hair. She was on the short side, probably about 5"6' or so. She looked about nineteen years old and had a very carefree look to her. Jimmy eyes closed again. He had been sure he had woken up but apparently not. That was the kind of thing you saw when you were dreaming. Or perhaps he _was_ dead and this was heaven. The room he lay in was white with bright lights. This could, in fact, very well be heaven. Perhaps the girl above him was an angel...

Jimmy heard the voice once again, and looked up to see the girl still standing over him. He smiled but he couldn't find the effort to keep his eyes open and get up. He once again closed his eyes smiling fondly. Well if this was what was in heaven, maybe being dead wasn't such a bad thing. He opened his eyes again expecting to see the girl standing above him but the sight he saw was quite different.

"Wake up, you dumb ass!" yelled Patrick, as he had suddenly replaced the girl.

Before Jimmy could ponder on why Patrick was suddenly standing over him, what Patrick was doing in heaven (Patrick didn't seem the type to die), and where the girl had gone, he was rudely awakened by a sharp smack to the face. Patrick had raised his hand and had smacked Jimmy square across his face with his backhand. Jimmy shot up, wide awake, to discover that he was, indeed, alive. He strongly doubted that one could feel pain in heaven.

Jimmy rubbed the right side of his head, the side that had so rudely been smacked, with his left hand. What the hell had he done to deserve that? He looked around the room to discover that although he wasn't dead, he wasn't in the healthiest of places. He now lay in a medical room. Jimmy took a wild guess and assumed that he was in the "Red Crimson" capital ship.

Men and women were laid on stretchers scattered all over the room. Jimmy guessed that he had been out for quite some time. Doctors and nurses weren't rushing all over the place as they would have been during or after a large scale battle such as the one they had most recently been engaged in. No men were lying down and screaming out in agony as they tried to hold onto their precious lives. Those that were in the room were either peacefully asleep (aka unconscious) or were just lying there, with their broken limbs and bandaged wounds. Some still lay there, inches away from death, but these few people were hooked up to the proper equipment and no longer needed a dozen people trying to save their lives. Occasionally, someone would go critical and nurses and doctors would rush to their sides and try to save them from falling into the realm of death but for now it was relatively peaceful.

"Why the hell did you hit me?" asked Jimmy as he rubbed his head.

"It woke you up, didn't it," replied Patrick smugly.

That was indeed a good point, thought Jimmy. He took a glance at the four people that were standing with him. Needless to say, Patrick was standing there, still quite smug, quietly chuckling away. There was also a doctor. She was tall with curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. She held a clipboard that most likely contained Jimmy's medical notes and record. There was also the girl who he had first seen when he had started to wake up. She was smiling fondly and was still laughing at Jimmy's discomfort.

There was also a man who wore general's uniform. He was old, very old. He had gray hair and thick gray mustache and beard. He was probably about sixty years old. He was short but still stood with his back straight and head raised high. He was also a tad pudgy but luckily his fat didn't bowl out over his belt in some grotesque way. His face was wrinkled and scared with a square jaw and it seemed he had a double chin. He looked strict and professional but judging by the wrinkles lines etched on his face, he was prone to laughter.

"How long have I been out?" muttered Jimmy curiously, as he rubbed his forehead, still feeling the sting from Patrick's back hand.

"A day and half, you stubborn ass," replied Patrick heartedly, "You really gave 'em hell. If it wasn't for you we might not have won that thing. I gotta admit that I was a little hard on you out there," that was an understatement thought Jimmy, "but man, after seeing you land that ship of yours and the condition you were in, holy crap."

Patrick was laughing heartily and seemed quite proud of the rooky. Both the general and girl chuckled and smiled at this. The doctor frowned at the mercenary's uncouth behavior. She didn't seem to appreciate the humor or the language he used.

"Well he should be good and able to get out of here in two hours as long as he stays conscious," said the doctor, all too willing to leave the mercenaries to their friends and jokes.

"Thank you, doctor Chelsy, that will be all," said the General with a thick Irish accent, dismissing the doctor, seeing her discomfort.

The doctor left all too willingly, looking at the mercenaries disapprovingly.

"Ah… don't mind that old hag," said the General reassuringly, "she can be quite stuck up at times, but she is the best medical officer in the entire Red Crimson. I had her specifically assigned to you to make sure you lived through all the hell you had been through. You're the hero of the day, laddie."

The three people standing near him chuckled and laughed. Both Patrick and the General looked down proudly upon the young mercenary. The girl smiled fondly and looked at Jimmy in a way that somehow made him think that she thought of him, not so much heroic, but more like he was an immeasurably stupid kid.

"The entire crew is talking about the crazy ass mercenary who saved their asses," continued Patrick, "you gave them hell, dumb ass, and you saved all of us. On top of that you lived through it all. Man, I didn't think that you would pull through that landing, and much less those injuries," Patrick laughed, and well as everyone else, "Good job rooky, good job."

"Thanks," replied Jimmy at a loss for words, "So… I'm a Hero."

"Oh great, It's all ready going to go straight to his head!" said the girl as she rolled her eyes, "Don't think one stupid stunt makes you a hero."

"I think someone's a little jealous," replied Jimmy insultingly, "Might I know the name of the jealous little red head?"

The girl glared at Jimmy defiantly, intending very well _not _to tell Jimmy what her name was, but the cheerful General did not notice any of this, and intervened between the two kids.

"The young fiery red head's name is Amy, and I myself am the great General Christof Yeager. Welcome to the Crimson Sun, flag ship of The Red Crimson."

"Yeah… I've heard of you…" replied Jimmy recognizing the name, "you're that old Noblist war hero."

"Indeed I am," replied the gelatinous General, proudly.

General Yeager had one of the most impressive battle records in all of mankind's ages. He was a legend and hero in his own time. Jimmy seemed to be meeting plenty of heroes and legends lately. Although Patrick was certainly not an international hero, he sure as hell was a legend. Many said that he was the best mercenary in all the galaxies. If ass needed to be kicked, he was the one to call. It was also rumored that the Union wanted him and after the latest series of events, Jimmy doubted that it was just a rumor.

Although neither Christof nor the Noblists had taken part in the fifty year war, they _had_ been part of the great pirate war. Twenty years ago, the Dragon pirates had practically been their own nation. They had had control over entire galaxies and vast armadas at the time. Then they had attacked the Strike mercenaries at full force which broke out into another Strike-Dragon war. This had looked grim for the Strikes but when the pirates had started to step too far into Noblist space, the Noblists decided to ally themselves with the Strikes and get rid of the pirates once and for all. This war had lasted about five years and had left the pirates in a lot of pain. Since then, the Dragons were never really able to recover from that, and other criminal organizations or companies had taken over their land.

"I seem to be meeting legend after legend, lately," said Jimmy, matter-of-factly.

"Oh by the way Jimmy, you might not wanna go into Union space anytime soon. You and I are officially at the top of the Union's most wanted list," announced Patrick feeling quite proud of himself, "I've been waiting four years for those bastards to make that public."

"Wha!" garbled Jimmy, quite confused.

"Four years ago, we, including our friend Yeager," Christof gave Patrick a sharp glance, "or not Yeager, you know one Irish man is just like the other," continued Patrick, "Well, anyway, the bunch of us went on a raid on a Union research facility. This was for a," the pudgy general shot another sharp glance at Patrick "certain… neutral nation. Anyways, we escaped with a bunch of super-high-tech, ass-whooping ships. Two of which you have already seen, one of which you currently own."

Jimmy's mouth gawked wide opened in stunned disbelief. "I, Jimmy Walker (Walker is indeed Jimmy's last name although we have not mentioned it yet), am a wanted criminal…"

"The _most _wanted criminal in the _entire _Union," added Amy smugly enjoying Jimmy's discomfort all too much.

Jimmy was too busy with being shocked to come up with any sort of witty repost to Amy's remark.

"But I've never committed _any_ major crimes in my entire innocent life!" cried out Jimmy in a panic. Upon further reflection he added, "Well… nothing major that is…"

"Well, looks like you just did," replied Amy with a smile.

"But my _entire family_ lives in the Union. What am I suppose to do?" muttered Jimmy not taking the news very well at all.

"Stay clear of the Union obviously," replied Patrick.

"But I gotta get word to my family."

"Don't worry laddie, they've already put your faces on the front page of every news paper and news network," announced General Yeager, "The media went crazy after the battle and published footage of the battle and are now making a huge deal over it. Every bounty hunter in the universe is looking for you."

"Aaand crap." said Jimmy as he flopped down on his bed.

"Ahhh, poor little Jimmy. What's the _hero _going to do now," teased Amy as she sat down next to Jimmy.

"Not talk to you, that's for sure," replied Jimmy with a hint of annoyance.

"Lucky me," replied Amy happily.

Jimmy, being the insolent teenager he was, simple looked at Amy grudgingly and gave her the finger. Amy followed this by slugging him in the shoulder, which ended up causing him a considerable amount of pain.

"Well General Christof and I have to talk some business so we'll be leaving you two now," said Patrick as he turned around and grabbed Christof's shoulder. This surprised Christof a little and he was about to put up a bit of resistance when Patrick gave the old man a cold glance that said "you try it and we'll see what happens next." Christof decided to go along with Patrick and not find out what else could happen.


	8. Chapter 8, Lies are forever

Chapter 8

Patrick dragged Christof out of the medical room and pushed him in the direction of the elevator. Although he was very happy that Jimmy was alive and well, there was a little something that was nagging him at the back of his mind that he hadn't been able to take care of since he had arrived on the Crimson Sun. During the last day he hadn't had much time to talk with Christof alone. When the Unionists had withdrawn from the fight, Christof had been much too busy dealing with the after-battle business. Then, Patrick had been too busy repairing his own ship, which had taken some serious cuts and bruises in the fight. He had also been worried about Jimmy but he would never admit that to anyone, not even himself. After that, he had gone to his quarters and had had a quick nap. He had been rudely awakened the next morning (which was the current day), by an officer who had told him that there was to be a mission briefing in an hour. Patrick would have much rather slept in some more but he couldn't afford to miss the mission briefing so he got his lazy ass out of bed, got dressed and went off to the briefing.

He had hoped to get some answers at the mission briefing. He had been waiting for them all through out the mission briefing, but unfortunately none of his questions had been answered, so he was now quite grumpy and impatient. After the "mission briefing," Patrick had been assailed by a bunch of officers who all wanted to meet him. Patrick had spoken to them sourly, and escaped from them as soon as he could. Unfortunately, Christof had done the same. Patrick had wandered the ship looking for Christof, but eventually gave up and went off to see how Jimmy was doing. Luckily for him, he had found Christof talking with the doctor and Amy down in the medical room, and had been quite determined at that point to get some of his badly needed answers. But fate had decided to make him wait just a little longer and decided that Jimmy would wake up at that point. Which brings us to Patrick dragging the General out of medical room and off to somewhere else. Patrick shoved Christof into the elevator and punched in a deck number. He could care less which deck it was, as long as it was a fair distance away.

"Where are we going, and why are we going there?" demanded Christof, who knew damn well both were they were going, and why.

"You know damn well where we're going and why," said Patrick who knew damn well that Christof knew damn well where they we're going and why they were going there.

Patrick hit the emergency stop button and brought the elevator to a stop where no one could interrupt them. He then took out his pistol and shot the security cameras and sensors.

"Must you always do that?" asked Christof tiredly.

"Must you always keep secrets?" retorted Patrick.

"Alright… what is it," asked Christof as he sat down on the floor.

"This isn't all about the hostages."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I've been over the entire mission briefing, information and your other data files, and I've found some very interesting plot holes," said Patrick.

"You always do…" replied Christof rolling his eyes.

"For one thing…" began Patrick.

"Here it comes," muttered Christof, putting a hand to his forehead.

"I doubt those hostages are even civilians. The route they took was not your standard civilian warp route. Also, that Dragon's would know where and when to attack the convoy is very unlikely, so you must have a spy within your ranks. Another thing is that the dragon base we are heading to is not your standard hostage base, more of a full blown galactic base. I've also gone over the fleet and remaining forces we are to receive. The force you showed up with to fight the Unionists was a little big as it was, but what we have coming in is much too large for your standard hostage base rescue. This is more like a fortress attack."

"Well you are correct on all accounts, so far," said Christof.

"And I do NOT need a partner for this. You know damn well I can do this on my own," added Patrick.

"Alright. Here's the deal. As you know, the Noblists have spies everywhere, and one of our operatives in the Union informed us of a trade convoy containing valuable top-secret data. It was so classified that our operative had no clue what it was even about, so it must have been important. So anyways, we set up an ambush, but the only thing that came through was a couple of fighters. We backtracked the path the ships were taking, and found that the pirates had beaten us to it. Since the pirates knew what to hit, where to hit it, how to hit it, and, how to do it before us, we concluded that there must be someone within our own ranks that was a spy for the dragons. We raised security and tried to catch him, but never did; then, the convoy of those "civilians" was ambushed and taken hostage. Except it wasn't civilians, it was a group of military personnel, scientists and the sorts; you know, important people. By the time we had figured out who the spy was, they had already made a run for it."

"I see, so we are to go into the pirate base, save the hostages _and _retrieve all the Unionist data and equipment they stole."

"Mm… Yes. That about covers it… Oh, and we'll also take anything useful from the pirates as well."

"Right. And how was I suppose to retrieve this data if I didn't know about it?" asked Patrick, who was currently enjoying thoughts of Christof getting hit over the head with a rubber chicken.

"Well you've met Amy."

"Yes… the red head."

"Well she is going to be with you and Jimmy during the mission."

"Now I need ANOTHER partner! I didn't even need the first one, as far as I could see!" yelled Patrick, finally getting back to his one of his original points.

"I just figured you could use the company, and Amy is the one who will retrieve the date," replied Christof, who shrugged impassively. He had hoped to avoid the subject.

Suddenly the elevator jerked back into motion, and they started to move back up again. Apparently security had decided to see if everything was all right. Patrick raised his eyebrows and looked at Christof skeptically; he pointed his gun at him to indicate that more of an explanation was needed.

"Look at it this way, I haven't seen you in such a good mood in years," said Christof who carefully avoided saying "four years" specifically, "You're doing a hell of a lot better then before."

"Yeah… I suppose I am," replied Patrick who was finally allowing a certain stupid someone close to himself, for the first time in years.

The elevator stopped, and Christof and Patrick were met by a large group of security guards who were all pointing their guns at them in a very uncomfortable way. Patrick looked at the guards, then at Christof, and then at the pistol in his hands, which was pointed right a Christof who was sitting down and the floor. He could see the guards' point.

"Officers… There is a _very_ good excuse for all of this."

Jimmy sat on the top right wing of his ship, the X-105. He had spent about five minutes talking to Amy after Patrick had left, before he and Amy had driven each insane. Amy had left to go hang out with her friends, while Jimmy had decided to go check on his ship and… things... Although the doctor had said he was supposed to stay in the medical room for another two hours, he was quite sure that every muscle and bone in his body was working perfectly fine so he jumped out of his bed and tried to walk away. Unfortunately, the security guard that was posted had been instructed to stop Jimmy from leaving the medical room so Jimmy pulled the oldest trick in the book. He jumped into a laundry bin and snuck out of the medical room.

Once he had successfully snuck out of the medical room, Jimmy went off to find his room, which took him the longest ten minutes of his life. When he finally found it, he discovered that none of his possessions, except the clothes he had been wearing during the fight, and weapons, were there. His clothes were totaled but his boots, K-59 and VP-01 were still there. Jimmy picked up his VP-01 pistol, stuffed it into his boot and went off to find his ship.

Jimmy had landed his ship in hangar bay three, as he recalled, so he went off in search of the said hangar. This had taken him about thirty minutes to find, as Jimmy was horrible with directions and much preferred maps. Somehow, he also found that finding a map always took longer than just looking for the thing himself. He had been able to find hangar bay one, the bridge, the engine room and two cargo bays, before he stumbled upon hangar bay three. When Jimmy had finally found his ship, he discovered that it was in the exact same place it had been when he had landed it and in the exact same condition. In short, crashed into a pile of debris, and in really bad shape. He decided to open the hatch and see if any of his belongings had survived the crash, against the better judgment of five mechanics and a Junior Engineer. Apparently, his ship was still in the same spot and condition because no one dared touch it.

Jimmy bravely (or stupidly. Your choice.), walked over to his ship and went straight to the hatch lock. Unfortunately this had been completely destroyed in the fight so Jimmy did what any good pilot would do. He took a couple steps back, brought out his VP-01 and shot the front of the hatch to hell. Anyone within five yards quickly ran away from the ship, as they expected the entire thing to go up in flames. The hatch door slowly started coming down while making a very loud creaking noise that even made Jimmy take a step back. Once it was halfway down, the hinges finally gave way and the door snapped right off the ship and came smashing down to the ground.

Jimmy stepped into the cargo hold and took a look around. It seemed that most of his things had miraculously survived. Most of his clothes were destroyed, but a pair of old school jeans had survived along with two T-shirts, he was going to have to buy an entire new wardrobe and a new pair of shoes. He went behind a case of missiles and got out of his horrible medical clothing and put on his jeans and one of his remaining T-shirts. It was a black T-shirt that had a funny smiley face on the front with its tongue sticking out.

He then got some tools from one of the mechanics, one of which was a long stick which only god knew what it was used for. He had already activated Katie who was currently guiding him through the electrical system. He had been repairing the ship for two hours now.

"Ok now attach the two broken blue wires," instructed Katie patiently.

"Which blue wire," asked Jimmy, for the billionth time.

"The one that leads to the closest Valkyrie and the one that leads to the junction." Replied Katie for the trillionth time.

"There are a lot of blue wires that lead to the junction." Said Jimmy for the god-knows-how-manyth time.

"Alright, the blue wire that leads to the glowy thingy on the junction," said Katie, who had figured out early on that Jimmy understood only very simple things.

"Oh… that one… well why didn't you say that at the beginning?" asked Jimmy as he connected the two wires, "Alright. Done."

"Good. Now for the tricky bit. Put on your harness first."

"Done." said Jimmy as he attached himself to the harness he had hooked up to the wing so that he wouldn't fall off while doing dangerous repairs.

"Alright, now go connect the two green wires on the bottom of the wing you disconnected earlier."

"Alright," replied Jimmy.

Jimmy walked over to the edge of the wing and went flat on his stomach. He then inched his way over the edge of the wing and looked under it. He inched further along so that he could reach the panel he needed to take out. He was hanging perilously over the edge of the wing when he finally came within reach of said panel. He slowly took off the cover, pulled it back towards himself and placed it on top of the wing. He then had to lean even further off and under the wing to reach the two wires he had to connect. Sweat beaded down his brow and fell down onto the ground below him. Its was a good enough fall since he was at the tip of the wing and falling upside down would only make the experience of falling that much more painful at the end.

Jimmy reattached the two wires and carefully grabbed the cover from above the wing. Now for the tricky part, getting the panel cover back in place, Jimmy had to place the panel back into position just right. He had to push back on each corner so that it clipped back into the hull properly. Jimmy clicked the two closest corners of the panel in with ease, but the two farthest ones were a problem. Jimmy had to lurch even further across the wing to reach these two corners.

Just as Jimmy was lurching way, way over the wing edge, Amy walked into the hangar bay. She noticed Jimmy and walked over to him silently. She was just under him when he was finishing the final corner. Jimmy heard the click of the panel and sighed in relief. Amy, thinking Jimmy was done with the tough stuff, decided to give him a shout.

"Hey there Jimmy," yelled Amy.

This caught Jimmy completely off guard, and Jimmy slipped, lost his grip, and fell off the wing. Jimmy yelled at the top of his lungs as he fell down from the wing and plummeted head first towards the ground. Just when he thought he was going to go splat on the floor, the safety harness kicked in and Jimmy suddenly stopped falling. The problem was that the cord didn't have any give, and it was attached to his stomach, so Jimmy had the feeling that a fifty ton ship had just smashed into his gut. Jimmy hung limp from the safety harness with his tongue sticking out while making a low moan.

"Are you ok," asked Amy innocently.

Jimmy spat a large amount of spit at the ground, which was still disturbingly close. "Does it look like it?" asked Jimmy sourly.

"Well, now that you mention it, you don't look so good. Maybe you should go back to medical."

"I'll go back to medical the day I miss you," replied Jimmy.

"Hmmm, so you don't like medical then?" asked Amy as she climbed up the ship onto the hull.

"No, it's a bore. They keep you stuffed up in that lousy room with nothing to do. There's no one to talk to as they keep all the conscious patients separated by placing the unconscious ones between them. AND if one of them _happens_ to come around, they ask you not to talk so that the others can sleep peacefully. _Peacefully my ass_, they're bloody unconscious, knocked out, or drugged, there's not a chance in hell any of them are going to wake up."

"I suppose you're right," said Amy as she jumped onto the middle wing which Jimmy was now hanging over.

"Could you please hurry up," asked Jimmy impatiently.

"Hang on a minute," said Amy as she sat down right under Jimmy, "I kinda enjoy you hanging there like that, you're much easier to hit."

"Why you…" began Jimmy.

"Have you ever heard of a piñata?" asked Amy curiously.

"No, I haven't," replied Jimmy crossly.

"No I suppose you uncultured Unionists wouldn't have."

Jimmy muttered something that Amy didn't catch but she continued on after a small pause.

"Well any who, a piñata is a wonderful thing at parties for little Noblists children. It's normally in the shape of some sort of cute cuddly animal but I can't figure out for the life of me why. Any who, these children take a large stick then put a blindfold over their eyes and take turns beating the piñata to bits until a bunch of treats and candies come flowing forth from it."

"Oh god," muttered Jimmy.

"Kinda like this," said Amy as she picked up the long stick Jimmy had grabbed from the mechanic by accident (some kids at a certain birthday party were going to be very displeased about this) and took a wild swing at Jimmy. Jimmy yelped and shut his eyes in fear. After a couple seconds he realized that he should have been struck by a stick by now so he opened his eyes and found Amy laughing away.

"Did you actually think I was going to hit you?" asked Amy while she laughed away.

"No…" replied Jimmy in denial.

"You're pretty stupid, eh?" said Amy as she bopped Jimmy on the nose with the stick.

Jimmy grunted in defiance but didn't deny it verbally.

"Hmm… what's this," asked Amy as she poked his pistol which was shoved into his boot.

"Leave that alone."

"Looks like a VP-01," said Amy as she took the pistol out of Jimmy's boot. Jimmy thought about kicking her but decided against it for some reason or another.

"God, when was the last time you washed your boot," asked Amy as the backed away from Jimmy's feet.

"Incase you haven't noticed, I've been a bit busy lately."

"That's no excuse," stated Amy as she inspected the pistol.

"How's that _not _an excuse," cried out Jimmy.

"This gun doesn't have very many shots," said Amy as, skillfully dodging the topic.

"What, uh, ug. It's a hell of a lot better than your crappy Noblist pistols, what ever you call them."

"They're D-16s and they have twenty shots, a lot better then your meager ten."

"What good are twenty shots if you with such crappy accuracy and power?"

"What good are only ten simple shots?"

Jimmy cried out again in hopelessness. It should now be noted that pirates, mercenaries, all different militaries and civilians use all sorts of different weaponry. The Coalition, Union and Noblists were, in fact, almost completely differing. Noblists preferred a balance between quality and quantity while Strike mercenaries opted for quality. The Strike mercenaries were one of the few mercenary groups to actually make their own weapons, which they sold to civilians and other allied mercenary groups. There is no such thing as a friendly bounty hunter, pirate, or mercenary group. All three groups hated each other and normally fought with each other. Bounty Hunters all operated under one guild, but this was only to protect themselves and gain rights. No bounty hunter was friends with another, or anyone at that. There are few bounty hunters in the galaxies as it is the life for the cold, lone ranger, stonehearted type. Jimmy had once tried to talk to a bounty hunter at a bar and this ended up in a bar fight which Jimmy had barely escaped of with his life.

"Well I guess to each his or her own," said Amy putting the pistol down and finally helping Jimmy out of his awkward position.

"Thank you," said Jimmy once his feet finally touched the ground (so to speak).

"You're welcome," replied Amy.

An officer walked into the hangar bay and called for Amy to come.

"Oh… I gotta go," said Amy who started to climb down the ship, "By the way that reminds me, I've been assigned to you and Patrick during the mission."

"Really now," replied Jimmy, trying as hard as he could not to look happy.

"Yep! So I'll be with you the entire time."

"Alright, well see ya around then," replied Jimmy.

"Byes," replied Amy who ran off and out off the hangar bay.

Jimmy sat down, picked up a dirty rag, started to wipe his hands off and watched Amy run off until she disappeared out of sight. There was a moment of silence as he thought for a few seconds. He then heard Katie chuckling away in the cockpit and threw his dirty rag at her holo image.


	9. Chapter 9, Court is now in session

Chapter 9

Alexi sat behind a large desk with Isaac sitting to his right and Zack to his left. They were in court, charged with mutiny. It had been decided to only prosecute Alexi, as it would take a couple of years to prosecute every single person involved. If Alexi was found guilty, then all the mutineers would be found guilty and sentenced to twenty years in jail, while Alexi could face between twenty years in jail and life if found guilty. Isaac was well used to defending Alexi in court and was doing likewise today. Zack had been talking with Alexi and Isaac, and Alexi had invited him to sit in the front with them. Zack had been all too willing.

Isaac leaned over to Alexi so that only he could hear him, "Tell me again why we brought the kid?" asked Isaac.

"He's a smart kid and he could be helpful," explained Alexi, "Plus it can't hurt having him up here."

"Yes it can," replied Isaac crossly, "this is a very delicate trial and we only want people to say exactly what we need them to say, nothing more. He could ask a bad question and blow the whole thing."

"Hey man, shut up, I seconded in law at the academy so I know what I'm doing," said Zack who had overheard the conversation.

Before Isaac could say anything else, the judge came out of his office and the bailiff ordered everyone to rise.

"All rise for his honor, Admiral Nicholas Stukov, Head of the Grand Coalition Fleet and judge of this court."

Everyone stood up in respect as the Admiral walked over to his seat. He was an old man, but what Admiral wasn't? He was in his latter years, somewhere in the eighties. He was a wise old man with many years of experience. He was bald, but the top of his head was unmarked and without wrinkles. His back was straight and his head raised high, this was no weak old man. He was still an adept pilot and fighter. He could most likely duke it out with the best in the fleet. He too, wore a standard Coalition uniform with a few medals and honors here and there. The Coalition didn't believe in squandering awards and medals like the Union and Noblists did. Awards and medals in the Coalition were very hard to receive and most men in the Coalition Star Fleet didn't receive even one in their entire career.

The judge got up to his seat and sat down, "You may now be seated," instructed the bailiff and everyone took his or her seats respectfully.

The court was filled to the brim. All Coalition courts were open to the public so the media couldn't accuse them of false trials or conspiracy. In fact the Coalition was built entirely on a thin line of trust, which, if broken, could send the entire Coalition into chaos. This was why Rebel planets were dealt with in such a way. The Coalition was still a very young country and many Unionists still called it a rebellion and not a country.

Admiral Nicholas was acting as judge for this case because it was such a high profile case. There had been a few mutinies in the past but Alexi was an exception for many reasons. First and foremost was that he actually came back the Coalition Star Fleet, head raised high with pride. He hadn't resisted arrest or tried to run away. Second was that he had many supporters within the Fleet and was highly respected by many people in the fleet from privates to Admirals. Stukov knew about Alexi and his opinion of the man was neutral. He believed he was a good officer, but frowned on many of his habits. He was completely undecided on whether or not he should award Alexi a medal or execute him for all to see. That was another reason he was judge for this prosecution, he would be the fairest judge. Most judges would execute Alexi on the spot, while a few would give him his own battleship, but the first one was more likely in most cases. It had been questioned whether or not they should keep Alexi in jail. Many officials had said, "Yes," while there were the few who said, "No." Nicholas was to announce it during the preliminaries, which were currently underway.

"Will the accuser please rise," asked Nicholas in German.

The Coalition was made up of many countries from earth. It consisted mainly of Russians, Germans, French men, East Indians (not from, North America for those of you who don't know where East India is) and Canadians. While those were the major countries from Earth, which made up the Coalition they were not alone. There were still many people from all over the world there, including the large amount of Africans. Therefore the Coalition had four main languages, German, French, Russian and English. All children of the Coalition were taught all four languages and therefore many people would speak different languages during this whole court session. Any Unionist, Noblist or free spacer would be completely lost in any Coalition courtroom, or, in fact, any place in the entire Coalition, from the court to the neighborhood tavern.

A short black man stood up in his regal uniform. His uniform was unlike the average Coalition uniform and could easily pass for combat armor. It also had a long flowing red cap that could encircle his entire body when pulled around. This man was a commissar, the most devoted to the Coalition's cause. Commissars were assigned to ships to maintain discipline, or add some veteran assistance. It took a long time to become a commissar and only the most rigid and loyal of officers became commissars. They had absolute power; they could seize command of any ship and demote or promote anyone on the spot. A commissar could instantly strip a captain of his command of a ship if necessary and even execute men on the spot, such as captain could except that he could execute captains as well. Commissars also used this punishment much more often then captains did. But this man was not your average commissar; he was Commissar Lukas, head commissar of the Coalition and had almost as much power as the head Admiral (almost, but not quite).

"What are the accusations against the defendant," asked Stukov, who already knew the accusations but needed to ask for procedure and to make sure that everyone else, was clear on them.

"The defendant is accused of, mutiny, high crimes against the great Coalition, treason, murder of a superior officer…" the list went on and on and lasted two minutes according to Zack's watch (which was broken and slow but he didn't know that, in fact, the list took about 5 minutes to read).

Zack examined the procedure with keen interest. Although he had studied law in the academy, he had never actually been part of an actual court session, so he found all of this very exciting. He listened to the accusation carefully taking note of each separate accusation. He thought that the commissar was going a little over board with these since mutiny or treason alone could get you executed anyways.

By the time the head commissar was done, half the crowd had fallen asleep and Stukov had to slam his hammer down a few times to wake everyone up. Once everyone had woken up, Stukov motioned to the commissar to sit down and everyone took a sigh of relief.

"Will the defendant please rise," instructed Stukov.

Alexi stood up, high and proud with perfect posture. The media loved this; it only insured that this would be a most interesting experience. Stukov inspected Alexi thoroughly with a keen eye. He noted the good posture, which demonstrated that Alexi was not ashamed of what he had done. The Admiral stared straight into Alexi's eyes and noted something hidden behind his respect and duty: defiance and the willingness to command. It was strong, and the Admiral was taken aback by it. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. Alexi clearly thought highly of himself, and would probably denounce the entire Coalition of he felt it needed. He could be a powerful ally and a dangerous enemy, thought the Admiral. This man could most likely unite millions to any purpose he saw fit. What Alexi believed in though was unknown to Stukov. Although no one knew it, there was much struggle and turmoil in the upper ranks of the Coalition. There was a mess of opinions and ideas floating around, but it was all kept hidden away from the media and public. Stukov, personally, wanted to go on a full out conquest, others wanted simply to destroy the Union, while still others wanted to separate from the Coalition and become independent, but, since these individuals did not say this to the public, they were allowed to live.

"Will the defendants' representatives please rise," instructed the Admiral.

Isaac and Zack stood up respectfully, each willing to fight their best to win this case.

"Does the defendant understand all the charges he faces?" asked Stukov.

"Yes I do sir," replied Alexi.

"Then, how do you plead?" asked Stukov.

"Not guilty, your honor," stated Isaac.

This created a great amount of talk in the crowd and media. This was most certainly the event of the year, if not of the decade. Stukov thought about this and looked out into the crowd. Many of the people were officers in the fleet and many bore some rather large smiles. It was obvious that almost all of Alexi's supporters were out there rooting for him.

"Order in the court!" yelled out Stukov.

This did jack squat and everyone continued to talk rather loudly without a care for procedure and order. Stukov found this rather rude of them so he decided to do something about it. He decided to wait them out. He looked at Alexi and his two companions. Isaac and Zack were in some heated conversation while Alexi was being caught in the crossfire. Eventually things calmed down enough to get things underway and finish this court session.

"Order, people, order," commanded the Admiral, "This is almost over. Alexi will be allowed to move about freely during trial, but will not be aloud to leave the city. Is that understood Alexi?"

"Crystal clear, sir," replied Alexi.

"Well then, the prosecution will begin in two days. Be there or face serious consequences," said Stukov, eyeing Alexi critically, "Court dismissed."

The crowd immediately got up and erupted into one million conversations. The media immediately pressed their way towards Alexi, Isaac and Zack like wild animals.

"We gotta get out of here," said Isaac.

"You two go. I'll handle this," replied Zack.

Alexi nodded and he and Isaac started to head over to the back exit. Zack walked over the large crowd and the media. He jumped up onto the banister rail and whistled very loudly for all to hear. Once he had gotten everyone's attention, he began talking.

"Alright folks, I'll be taking all of Alexi's questions during the court session, so if you have something to ask him, ask me."

"Who the hell are you?" was the most popular question asked.

"I am Cadet Zackary Danzer of the Coalition Starfleet, good personal friend of 1st lieutenant Alexi Krousov, one of his legal advisers and public representative."

"What are your plans to prove Alexi's innocence?" shouted many of the reporters.

"We plan to prove Alexi's innocence through and through," replied Zack, who wasn't about to give away any bit of their game plan (since he didn't know the game plan).

Zack stood there and basked in the media lights and fame. That was it; he was now one of the most famous people in the entire Coalition. The media loved the way he walked across the banister and answered all their questions happily if a little dodgy. He smiled happily and answered question after question without tiring.

Alexi and Isaac looked off and over to Zack who stood up on the banister and looked like he was on the verge of crowd surfing.

"He's gonna screw up horribly…" muttered Isaac as he opened the door that lead to the back exit.

Alexi laughed and shook his head, "I think he's enjoying the fame a little too much."

"My point exactly."

"He'll be fine," replied Alexi, who wasn't worried about anything.

"He better…" intoned Isaac as they left Zack to the masses.

Once Isaac and Alexi had entered the back door a woman ran over to Isaac and kissed him.

"Hello there, Christina," said Isaac with a broad smile.

"Hello to you too," replied the woman with an equally broad smile.

Christina was a French woman with long curly brown hair. She was a little on the short side but not by much. She had a very thick French accent and one could easily tell that she was proud to be French. She was in her late thirties and was well used to politics and media. It should be mentioned at this point that she was married to Isaac.

"Sorry I couldn't be at the court preliminary but I wanted to see the public's reaction first hand."

"And?" asked Alexi.

"The public has fallen in love with Alexi. You and Zack only help him out. The youth adore Alexi because he promises a new hope and change. The youth have grown restless and want change. The need change and they seem to see that in him. As you both know, the Coalition is going to fall apart if things keep on going the way they are. Many of people seem to think that Alexi is an example of what they should do. Also, everyone loves Zack, or, as he put it, Alexi's public representative," said Christina.

"And Alexi is pretty hot so all the girls love him," added Christina, winking at Alexi jokingly.

Alexi blushed and this remark and Isaac gave out a hearty laugh. Isaac was always happier when his wife was around.

"So what does this all mean," asked Alexi, trying to get the conversation flowing again.

"Well if this continues, it might not matter what evidence is brought up against you. Stukov and the jury might just have to let you go innocent. The Coalition would crumble apart if they imprisoned or executed their newfound hero," said Christina as she put her arm around Isaac.

"Well that _is_ good news," replied Alexi as they continued down the hall.

"So all we have to do is keep up our public image and we might just win this thing by default?" asked Isaac.

"Exactly." laughed Christina.

"Wait… when's the jury going to be the picked?" asked Alexi curiously.

"Isaac and I picked those people out yesterday, and judging by the looks of it, we're gonna have a tough fight ahead of us, but it is possible for us to win."

"Why didn't you guys tell me about this?"

"We didn't want to disturb you," answered Isaac, "The mutiny was only three days ago today and after Starfleet hand interrogated you about all the details, you were done and finished and needed some rest before the trial."

"Well ok… thanks, I guess…" muttered Alexi.

"No problem!" replied Christina warmly.

They continued walking down the hall until they came to rooms that contained a few hover cars. Hover cars didn't go very high, but, they were what were used to get oneself around a city or planet. One of these cars was Christina and Isaac's car. It was a normal car, nothing fancy but it did have an amazing paint job of sky blue with a white strip down the middle. It seated five people and had a pretty average engine.

Just then Zack ran up to the group and was introduced to Christina and started to pock fun at Isaac. He had apparently had a very good time with the media but needed a lift to his cousin's place who lived in the city. They all then got into the car and drove off home. For now.


End file.
